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Copyright N° 




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YITTORIA 




VITTORIA 


BY 


GEORGE MEREDITH 


REVISED EDITION 


NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
1897 


X 


^ Srf V 




COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY 
GEORGE MEREDITH 


Norfoooti iPrcss 

J. S. Cushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith 
Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 


CHAP. 

I. 

UP MONTE MOTTERONE 

• 

• 

• 

• 

PAGE 

1 

II. 

ON THE HEIGHTS 


* 


• 

7 

III. 

SIGNORINA VITTORIA . 


• 


• 

ltj 

IV. 

AMMIANI’S INTERCESSION . 


• 


• 

25 

V. 

THE SPY ..... 





32 

VI. 

THE WARNING .... 





41 

VII. 

BARTO RIZZO .... 





46 

VIII. 

THE LETTER .... 





57 

IX. 

IN VERONA 





65 

X. 

THE POPE’S MOUTH 


ft 


• 

79 

XI. 

LAURA PIAVENI .... 


ft 


• 

94 

XII. 

THE BRONZE BUTTERFLY . 


ft 


• 

105 

XIII. 

THE PLOT OF THE SIGNOR ANTONIO 


• 


• 

114 

XIV. 

AT THE MAESTRO’S DOOR . 


ft 


• 

125 

XV. 

AMMIANI THROUGH THE MIDNIGHT 


• 


• 

138 

XVI. 

COUNTESS AMMIANI . 


• 


• 

151 

XVII. 

IN THE PIAZZA d’ARMI 


• 


• 

157 

XVIII. 

THE NIGHT OF THE FIFTEENTH 


• 


• 

165 

XIX. 

THE PRIMA DONNA 


• 


• 

173 


V 


VI 


CONTENTS 


CHAP. 

XX. 

XXI. 

XXII. 

XXIII. 

XXIV. 

XXV. 

XXVI. 

XXVII. 

XXVIII. 

XXIX. 

XXX. 

XXXI. 

XXXII. 


XXXIII. 


XXXIV. 


THE OPERA OF CAMILLA 

THE THIRD ACT 

WILFRID COMES FORWARD 

FIRST HOURS OF THE FLIGHT . 

ADVENTURES OF VITTORIA AND ANGELO 

ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS 

THE DUEL IN THE PASS 

A NEW ORDEAL 

THE ESCAPE OF ANGELO 

EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR — THE 
TOBACCO RIOTS — RINALDO GUIDASCARPI 
EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR — THE 

FIVE DAYS OF MILAN 

EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR — VIT- 
TORIA DISOBEYS HER LOVER . . . . 

EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR — THE 
TREACHERY OF PERICLES — THE WHITE UM- 
BRELLA — THE DEATH OF RINALDO GUIDA- 
SCARPI 

EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR — COUNT 
KARL LENKENSTEIN — THE STORY OF THE 
GUIDASCARPI — THE VICTORY OF THE VOLUN- 
TEERS ......... 

EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR — THE 
DEEDS OF BARTO RIZZO — THE MEETING AT 


PAGE 

181 

196 

209 

214 

225 

234 

247 

262 

283 

301 

316 

332 


342 


359 


ROVEREDO . 


370 


CONTENTS 


CHAP. 

’'XXV. 

XXXVI. 

XXXVII. 

XXXVIII. 

XXXIX. 

XL. 

XLI. 

XLII. 

XLIII. 

XLIV. 

XLV. 

XLVI. 


Vll 


CLOSE OF THE LOMBARD CAMPAIGN — VITTORIA’S 
PERPLEXITY 

A FRESH ENTANGLEMENT 
ON LAGO MAGGIORE 
VIOLETTA D’lSORELLA . 

ANNA OF LENKENSTEIN 
THROUGH THE WINTER . 

THE INTERVIEW 
THE SHADOW OF CONSPIRACY 
THE LAST MEETING IN MILAN 
THE WIFE AND THE HUSBAND 
SHOWS MANY PATHS CONVERGING 
THE LAST .... 

EPILOGUE .... 


TO THE END . 


PAGK 

377 

388 

396 

407 

419 

434 

452 

457 

468 

476 

483 

505 

514 











# 













. 




* 

















VITTORIA 


CHAPTER I 

UP MONTE MOTTERONE 

From Monte Motterone you survey the Lombard plain. 
It is a towering dome of green among a hundred pinnacles 
of grey and rust-red crags. At dawn the summit of the 
mountain has an eagle eye for the far Venetian boundary 
and the barrier of the Apennines; but with sunrise come 
the mists. The vast brown level is seen narrowing in ; the 
Ticino and the Sesia waters, nearest, quiver on the air like 
sleepy lakes ; the plain is engulphed up fo the high ridges 
of the distant Southern mountain range, which lie stretched 
to a faint cloud-like line, in shape like a solitary monster of 
old seas crossing the Deluge. Long arms of vapour stretch 
across the urn-like valleys, and gradually thickening and 
swelling upward, enwrap the scored bodies of the ashen- 
faced peaks and the pastures of the green mountain, till the 
heights become islands over a forgotten earth. Bells of 
herds down the hidden run of the sweet grasses, and a con- 
tinuous leaping of its rivulets, give the Motterone a voice of 
youth and homeliness amid that stern company of Titan- 
heads, for whom the hawk and the vulture cry. The storm 
has beaten at them until they have got the aspect of the 
storm. They take colour from sunlight, and are joyless in 
colour as in shade. When the lower world is under pushing 
steam, they wear the look of the revolted sons of Time, fast 
chained before scornful heaven in an iron peace. Day at 
last brings vigorous fire; arrows of light pierce the mist- 
wreaths, the dancing draperies, the floors of vapour ; and the 

1 


2 


VITTORIA 


mountain of piled pasturages is seen with, its foot on the 
shore of Lago Maggiore. Down an extreme gulf the full 
sunlight, as if darting on a jewel in the deeps, seizes the 
blue-green lake with its isles. The villages along the 
darkly-wooded borders of the lake show white as clustered 
swans ; here and there a tented boat is visible, shooting from 
terraces of vines, or hanging on its shadow. Monte Boscero 
is unveiled ; the semicircle of the Piedmontese and the Swiss 
peaks, covering Lake Orta, behind, on along the Ticinese 
and the Grisons, leftward toward and beyond the Lugano 
hills, stand bare in black and grey and rust-red and purple. 
You behold a burnished realm of mountain and plain 
beneath the royal sun of Italy. In the foreground it shines 
hard as the lines of an irradiated Cellini shield. Farther 
away, over middle ranges that are soft and clear, it melts, 
confusing the waters with hot rays, and the forests with 
darkness, to where, wavering in and out of view like flying 
wings, and shadowed like wings of archangels with rose and 
with orange and with violet, silver-white Alps are seen. 
You might take them for mystical streaming torches on the 
border-ground between vision and fancy. They lean as in a 
great flight forward upon Lombardy. 

The curtain of an early autumnal morning was every- 
where lifted around the Motterone, save for one milky strip 
of cloud that lay lizard-like across the throat of Monte 
Boscero facing it, when a party of five footfarers, who had 
met from different points of ascent some way below, and 
were climbing the mountain together, stood upon the cropped 
herbage of the second plateau, and stopped to eye the land- 
scape ; possibly also to get their breath. They were Italians. 
Two were fair-haired muscular men, bronzed by the sun and 
roughly bearded, bearing the stamp of breed of one or other 
of the hill-cities under the Alps. A third looked a sturdy 
soldier, square-set and hard of feature, for whom beauties of 
scenery had few awakening charms. The remaining couple 
were an old man and a youth, upon whose shoulder the 
veteran leaned, and with a whimsical turn of head and eye, 
indicative of some playful cast of mind, poured out his 
remarks upon the objects in sight, and chuckled to himself, 
like one who has learnt the necessity to appreciate his own 
humour if he is disposed to indulge it. He was carelessly 


UP MONTE MOTTERONE 


3 


wrapped about in long loose woollen stuff, but the youth was 
dressed like a Milanese cavalier of the first quality, and was 
evidently one who would have been at home in the fashion- 
able Corso. His face was of the sweetest virile Italian 
beauty. The head was long, like a hawk’s, not too lean, and 
not sharply ridged from a rapacious beak, but enough to 
show characteristics of eagerness and promptitude. His 
eyes were darkest blue, the eyebrows and long disjoining 
eyelashes being very dark over them, which made their 
colour precious. The nose was straight and forward from 
the brows ; a fluent black moustache ran with the curve of 
the upper lip, and lost its line upon a smooth olive cheek. 
The upper lip was firmly supported by the under, and the 
chin stood freely out from a fine neck and throat. 

After a space an Austrian war-steamer was discerned 
puffing out of the harbour of Laveno. 

“ That will do,” said the old man. “ Carlo, thou son of 
Paolo, we will stump upward once more. Tell me, hulloa, 
sir ! are the best peaches doomed to entertain vile, domici- 
liary, parasitical insects ? I ask you, does nature exhibit 
motherly regard, or none, for the regions of the picturesque ? 
None, I say. It is an arbitrary distinction of our day. To 
complain of the intrusion of that black-yellow flag and foul 
smoke-line on the lake underneath us is preposterous, since, 
as you behold, the heavens make no protestation. Let us 
up. There is comfort in exercise, even for an ancient creat- 
ure such as I am. This mountain is my brother, and flat- 
ters me not — I am old.” 

“ Take my arm, dear Agostino,” said the youth. 

“ Never, my lad, until I need it. On, ahead of me, goat ! 
chamois ! and teach me how the thing used to be done in 
my time. Old legs must be the pupils of young ones ; — 
mark that piece of humility, and listen with respectfulness 
to an old head by-and-by.” 

It was the autumn antecedent to that memorable Spring 
of the great Italian uprising, when, though for a tragic issue, 
the people of Italy first felt and acted as a nation, and 
Charles Albert, called the Sword of Italy, aspired, without 
comprehension of the passion of patriotism by which it was 
animated, to lead it quietly into the fold of his Piedmontese 
kingship. 


4 


VITTORIA 


There is not an easier or a pleasanter height to climb 
than the Motterone, if, in Italian heat, you can endure the 
disappointment of seeing the summit, as you ascend, con- 
stantly flit away to a farther station. It seems to throw 
its head back, like a laughing senior when children struggle 
up for kissings. The party of five had come through the 
vines from Stresa and from Baveno. The mountain was 
strange to them, and they had already reckoned twice on 
having the topmost eminence in view, when reaching it 
they found themselves on a fresh plateau, traversed by 
wild water-courses, and browsed by Alpine herds; and 
again the green dome was distant. They came to the 
highest chalet, where a hearty wiry young fellow, busily 
employed in making cheese, invited them to the enjoyment 
of shade and fresh milk. “For the sake of these adoles- 
cents, who lose much and require much, let it be so,” said 
Agostino gravely, and not without some belief that he con- 
sented to rest on behalf of his companions. They allowed 
the young mountaineer to close the door, and sat about his 
fire like sagacious men. When cooled and refreshed, Agos- 
tino gave the signal for departure, and returned thanks for 
hospitality. Money was not offered and not expected. As 
they were going forth the mountaineer accompanied them 
to the step on the threshold, and with a mysterious eager- 
ness in his eyes, addressed Agostino. 

“ Signore, is it true ? — the king marches ? ” 

“ Who is the king, my friend ? ” returned Agostino. “ If 
he marches out of his dominions, the king confers a blessing 
on his people perchance.” 

“ Our king, signore ! ” The mountaineer waved his finger 
as from Novara toward Milan. 

Agostino seemed to awaken swiftly from his disguise of 
an absolute gravity. A red light stood in his eyeballs, as 
if upon a fiery answer. The intemperate fit subsided. 
Smoothing down his mottled grey beard with quieting 
hands, he took refuge in his habitual sententious irony. 

“ My friend, I am not a hare in front of the king, nor am 
I a ram in the rear of him : I fly him not, neither do I 
propel him. So, therefore, I cannot predict the movements 
of the king. Will the wind blow from the north to-morrow, 
think you ? ” 


UP MONTE MOTTERONE 


5 


The mountaineer sent a quick gaze up the air, as to 
descry signs. 

“Who knows ?” Agostino continued, though not playing 
into the smiles of his companions; “the wind will blow 
straight thither where there is a vacuum ; and all that we 
can state of the king is, that there is a positive vacuum 
here. It would be difficult to predict the king’s movements 
save by such weighty indications.” 

He laid two fingers hard against the rib which shields the 
heart. It had become apparently necessary for the speaker 
to relieve a mind surcharged with bile at the mention of the 
king ; for, having done, he rebuked with an amazed frown 
the indiscretion of Carlo, who had shouted, “ The Carbonaro 
king ! ” 

“Carlo, my son, I will lean on your arm. On your 
mouth were better,” Agostino added, under his voice, as they 
moved on. 

“Oh, but,” Carlo remonstrated, “let us trust somebody. 
Milan has made me sick of late. I like the look of that 
fellow.” 

“You allow yourself, my Carlo, an immense indulgence 
in permitting yourself to like the look of anything. Now, 
listen — Viva Carlo Alberto ! ” 

The old man rang out the loyal salutation spiritedly, and 
awoke a prompt response from the mountaineer, who sounded 
his voice wide in the keen upper air. 

“ There’s the heart of that fellow ! ” said Agostino. “ He 
has but one idea — his king ! If you confound it, he takes 
you for an enemy. These free mountain breezes intoxicate 
you. You would embrace the king himself if you met him 
here.” 

“I swear I would never be guilty of the bad joke of cry- 
ing a ‘ Viva ’ to him anywhere upon earth,” Carlo replied. 
“ I offend you,” he said quickly. 

The old man was smiling. 

“ Agostino Balderini is too notoriously a bad joker to be 
offended by the comments of the perfectly sensible, boy of 
mine ! My limbs were stiff, and the first three steps from a 
place of rest reminded me acutely of the king’s five years of 
hospitality. He has saved me from all fatigue so long, that 
the necessity to exercise these old joints of mine touched me 


6 


VITTORIA 


with, a grateful sense of his royal bounty. I had from him 
a chair, a bed, and a table : shelter from sun and from all 
silly chatter. Now I want a chair or a bed. I should like 
to sit at a table ; the sun burns me ; my ears are afflicted. 
I cry ‘ Viva ! ’ to him that I may be in harmony with the 
coming chorus of Italy, which I prophetically hear. That 
young fellow, in whom you confide so much, speaks for his 
country. We poor units must not be discordant. No ! 
Individual opinion, my Carlo, is discord when there is a 
general delirium. The tide arriving, let us make the best 
of the tide. My voice is wisdom. We shall have to follow 
this king ! ” 

“ Shall we ! ” uttered one behind them gruffly. “ When I 
see this king swallow one ounce of Austrian lead, I shall 
not be sorry to follow him ! ” 

“Eight, my dear Ugo,” said Agostino, turning round to 
him ; “ and I will then compose his hymn of praise. He 
has swallowed enough of Austrian bread. He took an 
Austrian wife to his bed. Who knows ? he may some day 
declare a preference for Austrian lead. But we shall have 
to follow him, or stay at home drivelling.” 

Agostino raised his eyes, that were glazed with the great 
heat of his frame. 

“ Oh, that, like our Dante, I had lived in the days when 
souls were damned ! Then would I uplift another shout, 
believe me ! As things go now, we must allow the traitor 
to hope for his own future, and we simply shrug. We can- 
not plant him neck-deep for everlasting in a burning marl, 
and hear him howling. We have no weapons in these times 
— none ! Our curses come back to roost. This is one of the 
serious facts of the century, and controls violent language. 
What ! are you all gathered about me ? Oracles must be 
moving, too. There’s no rest even for them, when they 
have got a mountain to scale.” 

A cry, “ He is there ! ” and “ Do you see him ? ” burst from 
the throats of men surrounding Agostino. 

Looking up to the mountain’s top, they had perceived the 
figure of one who stood with folded arms, sufficiently near 
for the person of an expected friend to be descried. They 
waved their hats, and Carlo shot ahead. The others trod 
after him more deliberately, but in glad excitement, specu- 


ON THE HEIGHTS 


T 


lating on the time which this sixth member of the party, 
who were engaged to assemble at a certain hour of the 
morning upon yonder height, had taken to reach the spot 
from Omegna, or Orta, or Pella, and rejoicing that his 
health should be so stout in despite of his wasting labours 
under city smoke. 

“Yes, health !” said Agostino. “Is it health, do you 
think ? It’s the heart of the man ! and a heart with a mill- 
stone about it — a heart to breed a country from ! There 
stands the man who has faith in Italy, though she has been 
lying like a corpse for centuries. God bless him ! He has 
no other comfort. Viva l’ltalia ! ” 

The exclamation went up, and was acknowledged by him 
on the eminence overhanging them ; but at a repetition of 
it his hand smote the air sideways. They understood the 
motion, and were silent ; while he, until Carlo breathed his 
name in his hearing, eyed the great scene steadfastly, with 
the absorbing simple passion of one who has endured long 
exile, and finds his clustered visions of it confronting the 
strange, beloved, visible life : — the lake in the arms of 
giant mountains : the far-spreading hazy plain ; the hanging 
forests ; the pointed crags ; the gleam of the distant rose- 
shadowed snows that stretch for ever like an airy host, 
mystically clad, and baffling the eye as with the motions of 
a flight toward the underlying purple land. 


CHAPTER II 

ON THE HEIGHTS 

He was a man of middle stature, thin, and even frail, as 
he stood defined against the sky ; with the complexion of 
the student, and the student’s aspect. The attentive droop 
of his shoulders and head, the straining of the buttoned coat 
across his chest, the air as of one who waited and listened, 
which distinguished his figure, detracted from the promise 
of other than contemplative energy, until his eyes were 
fairly seen and felt. That is, until the observer became 


8 


VITTORIA 


aware that those soft and large dark meditative eyes had 
taken hold of him. In them lay no abstracted student’s 
languor, no reflex burning of a solitary lamp ; but a quiet 
grappling force engaged the penetrating look. Gazing upon 
them, you were drawn in suddenly among the thousand 
whirring wheels of a capacious and a vigorous mind, that 
was both reasoning and prompt, keen of intellect, acting 
throughout all its machinery, and having all under full com- 
mand : an orbed mind, supplying its own philosophy, and 
arriving at the sword-stroke by logical steps, — a mind much 
less supple than a soldier’s ; anything but the mind of a 
Handed The eyes were dark as the forest’s border is dark ; 
not as night is (lark. Under favourable lights their colour 
was seen to be a deep rich brown, like the chestnut, or more 
like the hazel-edged sunset brown which lies upon our 
western rivers in the winter floods, when night begins to 
shadow them. 

The side-view of his face was an expression of classic 
beauty rarely now to be beheld, either in classic lands or 
elsewhere. It was severe ; the tender serenity of the full 
bow of the eyes relieved it. In profile they showed little 
of their intellectual quality, but what some might have 
thought a playful luminousness, and some a quick pulse of 
feeling. The chin was firm ; on it, and on the upper lip, 
there was a clipped growth of black hair. The whole visage 
widened upward from the chin, though not very markedly 
before it reached the broad-lying brows. The temples were 
strongly indented by the swelling of the forehead above 
them : and on both sides of the head there ran a pregnant 
ridge, such as will sometimes lift men a deplorable half inch 
above the earth we tread. If this man was a problem to 
others, he was none to himself ; and when others called him 
an idealist, he accepted the title, reading himself, notwith- 
standing, as one who was less flighty than many philosophers 
and professedly practical teachers of his generation. He 
saw far, and he grasped ends beyond obstacles: he was 
nourished by sovereign principles; he despised material 
present interests ; and, as I have said, he was less supple 
than a soldier. If the title of idealist belonged to him, we 
will not immediately decide that it was opprobrious. The 
idealized conception of stern truths played about his head 


ON THE HEIGHTS 


9 


certainly for those who knew and who loved it. Such a 
man, perceiving a devout end to be reached, might prove less 
scrupulous in his course, possibly, and less remorseful, than 
revolutionary Generals. His smile was quite unclouded, and 
came softly as a curve in water. It seemed to flow with, and 
to pass in and out of, his thoughts, — to be a part of his 
emotion and his meaning when it shone transiently full. 
For as he had an orbed mind, so had he an orbed nature. 
The passions were absolutely in harmony with the intelli- 
gence. He had the English manner ; a remarkable sim- 
plicity contrasting with the demonstrative outcries and 
gesticulations of his friends when they joined him on the 
height. Calling them each by name, he received their 
caresses and took their hands ; after which he touched the 
old man’s shoulder. 

“ Agostino, this has breathed you ? ” 

“ It has ; it has, my dear and best one ! ” Agostino replied. 
“ But here is a good market-place for air. Down below we 
have to scramble for it in the mire. The spies are stifling 
down below. I don’t know my own shadow. I begin to think 
that I am important. Footing up a mountain corrects the 
notion somewhat. Yonder, I believe, I see the Grisons, 
where Freedom sits. And there’s the Monte della Disgrazia. 
Carlo Alberto should be on the top of it, but he is invisible. 
I do not see that Unfortunate.” 

“ Ho,” said Carlo Ammiani, who chimed to his humour 
more readily than the rest, and affected to inspect the 
Grisons’ peak through a diminutive opera-glass. “No, he 
is not there.” 

“ Perhaps, my son, he is like a squirrel, and is careful to 
run up t’other side of the stem. For he is on that moun- 
tain ; no doubt of it can exist even in the Boeotian mind of 
one of his subjects; myself, for example. It will be an 
effulgent fact when he gains the summit.” 

The others meantime had thrown themselves on the grass 
at the feet of their manifestly acknowledged leader, and 
looked up for Agostino to explode the last of his train of 
conceits. He became aware that the moment for serious 
talk had arrived, and bent his body, groaning loudly, and 
uttering imprecations against him whom he accused of being 
the promoter of its excruciating stiffness, until the ground 


10 


YITTORIA 


relieved him of its weight. Carlo continued standing, while 
his eyes examined restlessly the slopes just surmounted by 
them, and occasionally the deep descent over the green- 
glowing Orta Lake. It was still early morning. The heat 
was tempered by a cool breeze that came witji scents of 
thyme. They had no sight of human creature anywhere, 
but companionship of Alps and birds of upper air; and 
though not one of them seasoned the converse with an 
exclamation of joy and of blessings upon a place of free 
speech and safety, the thought was in their hunted bosoms, 
delicious as a woodland rivulet that sings only to the leaves 
overshadowing it. 

They were men who had sworn to set a nation free, — 
free from the foreigner, to begin with. 

(He who tells this tale is not a partisan ; he would deal 
equally toward all. Of strong devotion, of stout nobility, of 
unswerving faith and self-sacrifice, he must approve; and 
when these qualities are displayed in a contest of forces, 
the wisdom of means employed, or of ultimate views enter- 
tained, may be questioned and condemned; but the men 
themselves may not be.) 

These men had sworn their oath, knowing the meaning of 
it, and the nature of the Fury against whom men who stand 
voluntarily pledged to any great resolve must thenceforward 
match themselves. Many of the original brotherhood had 
fallen, on the battle-field, on the glacis, or in the dungeon. 
All present, save the youthfuller Carlo, had suffered. Im- 
prisonment and exile marked the Chief. Ugo Corte, of 
Bergamo, had seen his family swept away by the execu- 
tioner and pecuniary penalties. Thick scars of wounds 
covered the body and disfigured the face of Giulio Bandi- 
nelli. Agostino had crawled but half-a-year previously out 
of his Piedmontese cell, and Marco Sana, the Brescian, had 
in such a place tasted of veritable torture. But if the calam- 
ity of a great oath was upon them, they had now in their 
faithful prosecution of it the support which it gives. They 
were unwearied; they had one object; the mortal anguish 
they had gone through had left them no sense for regrets. 
Life had become the field of an endless engagement to 
them ; and as in battle one sees beloved comrades struck 
down, and casts but a glance at their prostrate forms, they 


ON THE HEIGHTS 


11 


heard the mention of a name, perchance, and with a word 
or a sign told what was to be said of a passionate glorious 
heart at rest, thanks to Austrian or vassal-Sardinian mercy. 

So they lay there and discussed their plans. 

“ From |^hat quarter do you apprehend the surprise ? ” 
Ugo Corte glanced up from the maps and papers spread 
along the grass to question Carlo ironically, while the latter 
appeared to be keeping rigid watch over the safety of the 
position. Carlo puffed the smoke of a cigarette rapidly, and 
Agostino replied for him : — 

“ From the quarter where the best donkeys are to be had.” 

It was supposed that Agostino had resumed the habit 
usually laid aside by him for the discussion of serious mat- 
ters, and had condescended to father a coarse joke ; but his 
eyes showed no spark of their well-known twinkling solici- 
tation for laughter, and Carlo spoke in answer gravely : — 

“ From Baveno it will be.” 

“ From Baveno ! They might as well think to surprise 
hawks from Baveno. Keep watch, dear Ammiani ; a good 
start in a race is a kick from the Gods.” 

With that, Corte turned to the point of his finger on 
the map. He conceived it possible that Carlo Ammiani, a 
Milanese, had reason to anticipate the approach of people 
by whom he, or they, might not wish to be seen. Had he 
studied Carlo’s face he would have been reassured. The 
brows of the youth were open, and his eyes eager with ex- 
pectation, that showed the flying forward of the mind, and 
nothing of knotted distrust or wary watchfulness. Now 
and then he would move to the other side of the mountain, 
and look over upon Orta ; or with the operarglass clasped in 
one hand beneath an arm, he stopped in his sentinel-march, 
frowning reflectively at a word put to him, as if debating 
within upon all the bearings of it; but the only answer 
that came was a sharp assent, given after the manner of 
one who dealt conscientiously in definite affirmatives ; and 
again the glass was in requisition. Marco Sana was a fight- 
ing soldier, who stated what he knew, listened, and took his 
orders. Giulio Bandinelli was also little better than the 
lieutenant in an enterprise. Corte, on the other hand, had 
the conspirator’s head, — a head like a walnut, bulging above 
the ears, — and the man was of a sallying temper. He lay 


12 


VITTORIA 


there putting bit by bit of his plot before the Chief for his 
approval, with a careful construction, that upon the expres- 
sion of any doubt of its working smoothly in the streets of 
Milan, caused him to shout a defensive, “But Carlo says 
yes ! ” 

This uniform character of Ammiani’s replies, and the 
smile of Agostino on hearing them, had begun to strike the 
attention of the soldierly Marco Sana. He ran his hand 
across his shorn head, and puffed his burnt red mole-spotted 
cheeks, with a sidelong stare at the abstracted youth, “ Said 
yes ! ” he remarked. “ He might say no, for a diversion. 
He has yeses enough in his pay to earn a Cardinal’s hat. 

‘ Is Milan preparing to rise ? ’ ‘ Yes.’ — ‘ Is she ready for 

the work ? ’ ‘ Yes.’ — ‘ Is the garrison on its guard ? ’ ‘Yes.’ 
— ‘ Have you seen Barto Rizzo ? ’ ‘ Yes.’ — ‘ Have the people 
got the last batch of arms ? ’ ‘ Yes.’ — And ‘ Yes,’ the secret 

is well kept; ‘Yes,’ Barto Rizzo is steadily getting them 
together. We may rely on him : Carlo is his intimate 
friend : Yes, Yes : — There’s a regiment of them at your 
service, and you may shuffle them as you will. This is 
the help we get from Milan : a specimen of what we may 
expect ! ” 

Sana had puffed himself hot, and now blew for coolness. 

“ You are,” — Agostino addressed him, — “ philosophically 
totally wrong, my Marco. Those affirmatives are fat worms 
for the catching of fish. They are the real pretty fruit of 
the Hesperides. Personally, you or I may be irritated by 
them : but I’m not sure they don’t please us. Were Carlo 
a woman, of course he should learn to say no ; — as he will 
now if I ask him, Is she in sight ? I won’t do it, you know ; 
but as a man and a diplomatist, it strikes me that he can’t 
say yes too often.” 

“Answer me, Count Ammiani, and do me the favour to 
attend to these trifles for the space of two minutes,” said 
Corte. “Have you seen Barto Rizzo? Is he acting for 
Medole ? ” 

“ As mole, as reindeer, and as bloody northern Raven ! ” 
ejaculated Agostino : “ perhaps to be jackal, by-and-by. But 
I do not care to abuse our Barto Rizzo, who is a prodigy of 
nature, and has, luckily for himself, embraced a good cause, 
for he is certain to be hanged if he is not shot. He has the 


ON THE HEIGHTS 


13 


prophetic owl’s face. I have always a fancy of his hooting 
his own death-scrip. I wrong our Barto : — Medole would 
be the jackal, if it lay between the two.” 

Carlo Ammiani had corrected Corte’s manner to him by a 
complacent readiness to give him distinct replies. He then 
turned and set off at full speed down the mountain. 

“ She is sighted at last,” Agostino murmured, and added 
rapidly some spirited words under his breath to the Chief, 
whose chin was resting on his doubled hand. 

Corte, Marco, and Giulio were full of denunciations against 
Milan and the Milanese, who had sent a boy to their councils. 
It was Brescia and Bergamo speaking in their jealousy, but 
Carlo’s behaviour was odd, and called for reproof. He had 
come as the deputy of Milan to meet the Chief, and he had 
not spoken a serious word on the great business of the hour, 
though the plot had been unfolded, the numbers sworn to, 
and Brescia, and Bergamo, and Cremona, and Venice had 
spoken upon all points through their emissaries, the two 
latter cities being represented by Sana and Corte. 

“ We’ve had enough of this lad,” said Corte. “His laun- 
dress is following him with a change of linen, I suppose, or 
it’s a scent-bottle. He’s an admirable representative of the 
Lombard metropolis ! ” Corte drawled out the words in 
prodigious mimicry. “ If Milan has nothing better to send 
than such a fellow, we’ll finish without her, and shame the 
beast that she is. She has been always a treacherous 
beast ! ” 

“ Poor Milan ! ” sighed the Chief ; “ she lies under the 
beak of the vulture, and has twice been devoured ; but she 
has a soul: she proves it. Ammiani, too, will prove his 
value. I have no doubt of him. As to boys, or even girls, 
you know my faith is in the young. Through them Italy 
lives. What power can teach devotion to the old ? ” 

“ I thank you, signore,” Agostino gesticulated. 

“ But, tell me, when did you learn it, my friend ? ” 

In answer, Agostino lifted his hand a little boy’s height 
from the earth. 

The old man then said : “ I am afraid, my dear Corte, you 
must accept the fellowship of a girl as well as of a boy upon 
this occasion. See ! our Carlo ! You recognize that dancing 
speck below there ? — he has joined himself — the poor lad 


14 


YITTORIA 


wishes he could, I dare swear ! — to another bigger speck, 
which is verily a lady : who has joined herself to a 
donkey — a common habit of the sex, I am told; bul 
I know them not. That lady, signor Ugo, is the signorina, 
Yittoria. You stare ? But, I tell you, the game cannot go 
on without her; and that is why I have permitted you 
to knock the ball about at your own pleasure for these forty 
minutes.” 

Corte drew his under-lip on his reddish stubble mous- 
tache. “ Are we to have women in a conference ? ” he asked 
from eye to eye. 

“Keep to the number, Ugo; and moreover, she is not a 
woman, but a noble virgin. I discern a distinction, though 
you may not. The Vestal’s fire burns straight.” 

“ Who is she ? ” 

“It rejoices me that she should be so little known. All 
the greater the illumination when her light shines out ! 
The signorina Yittoria is a cantatrice who is about to appear 
upon the boards.” 

“ Ah ! that completes it.” Corte rose to his feet with an 
air of desperation. “We require to be refreshed with 
quavers and crescendos and trillets ! Who ever knew a 
singer that cared an inch of flesh for her country ? Money, 
flowers, flattery, vivas ! but, money ! money ! and Austrian 
as good as Italian. I’ve seen the accursed wenches bow 
gratefully for Austrian bouquets : — bow ? ay, and more ; 
and when the Austrian came to them red with our blood. 
I spit upon their polluted cheeks ! They get us an ill name 
wherever they go. These singers have no country. One — 
I knew her — betrayed Filippo Mastalone, and sang the 
night of the day he was shot. I heard the white demon my- 
self. I could have taken her long neck till she twisted like 
a serpent and hissed. May heaven forgive me for not level- 
ling a pistol at her head ! If God, my friends, had put the 
thought into my brain that night ! ” 

A flush had deadened Corte’s face to the hue of night- 
shade. 

“You thunder in a clear atmosphere, my Ugo,” returned 
the old man, as he fell back calmly at full length. 

“ And who is this signorina Yittoria ? ” cried Corte. 

“ A cantatrice who is about to appear upon the boards, as 


ON THE HEIGHTS 15 

I have already remarked : of La Scala, let me add, if you 
hold it necessary/’ 

And what does she do here ? ” 

? “ Her object in coming, my friend ? Her object in coming 
is, first, to make her reverence to one who happens to be 
among us this day ; and secondly, but principally, to submit 
a proposition to him and to us.” 

“ What’s her age ? ” Corte sneered. 

“ According to what calendar would you have it reckoned ? 
Wisdom would say sixty : Father Chronos might divide 
that by three, and would get scarce a month in addition, 
hungry as he is for her, and all of us ! But Minerva’s 
handmaiden has no age. And now, dear Ugo, you have 
your opportunity to denounce her as a convicted screecher 
by night. Do so.” 

Corte turned his face to the Chief, and they spoke together 
for some minutes : after which, having had names of noble 
devoted women, dead and living, cited to him, in answer 
to brutal bellowings against that sex, and hearing of the 
damsel under debate as one who was expected and was wel- 
come, he flung himself upon the ground again, inviting calam- 
ity by premature resignation. Giulio Bandinelli stretched 
his hand for Carlo’s glass, and spied the approach of the 
signorina. 

“ Dark,” he said. 

“ A jewel of that complexion,” added Agostino, by way of 
comment. 

“ She has scorching eyes.” 

“ She may do mischief ; she may do mischief ; let it be 
only on the right side ! ” 

“ She looks fat.” 

“ She sits doubled up and forward, don’t you see, to relieve 
the poor donkey. You, my Giulio, would call a swan fat if 
the neck were not always on the stretch.” 

" By Bacchus ! what a throat she has ! ” 

“ And well interjected, Giulio! It runs down like wine, 
like wine, to the little ebbing and flowing wave ! Away with 
the glass, my boy ! You must trust to all that’s best about 
you to spy what’s within. She makes me young — young ! ” 

Agostino waved his hand in the form of a salute to her on 
the last short ascent. She acknowledged it gracefully ; and 


16 


VITTORIA 


talking at intervals to Carlo Ammiani, who footed briskly by 
her side, she drew by degrees among the eyes fixed on her, 
some of which were not gentle ; but hers were for the Chief, 
at whose feet, when dismounted by Ammiani’ s solicitous aid, 
she would have knelt, had he not seized her by her elbows, 
and put his lips to her cheek. 

“ The signorina Vittoria, gentlemen,” said Agostino. 


CHAPTER III 

SIGNORINA VITTORIA 

The old man had introduced her with much of the pride 
of a father displaying some noble child of his for the first 
time to admiring friends. 

“ She is one of us,” he pursued ; “ a daughter of Italy ! 
My daughter also ; is it not so ? ” 

He turned to her as for a confirmation. The signorina 
pressed his fingers. She was a little intimidated, and for 
the moment seemed shy and girlish. The shade of her 
broad straw hat partly concealed her vivid features. 

“How, gentlemen, if you please, the number is complete, 
and we may proceed to business,” said Agostino, formally : 
but as he conducted the signorina to place her at the feet of 
the Chief, she beckoned to her servant, who was holding the 
animal she had ridden. He came up to her, and presented 
himself in something of a military posture of attention to 
her commands. These were that he should take the poor 
brute to water, and then lead him back to Baveno, and do 
duty in waiting upon her mother. The first injunction was 
received in a decidedly acquiescent manner. On hearing the 
second, which directed his abandonment of his post of im- 
mediate watchfulness over her safety, the man flatly objected 
with a “ Signorina, no.” 

He was a handsome bright-eyed fellow, with a soldier’s 
frame and a smile as broad and beaming as laughter, indi- 
cating much of that mixture of acuteness and simplicity 
which is a characteristic of the South, and means no more 


SIGNORINA VITTORIA 


IT 


than that the extreme vivacity of the blood exceeds at times 
that of the brain. 

A curious frown of half-amused astonishment hung on the 
signorina’s face. 

“ When I tell you to go, Beppo ! ” 

At once the man threw out his fingers, accompanied by 
an amazingly voluble delivery of his reasons for this revolt 
against her authority. Among other things, he spoke of an 
oath s worn by him to a foreign gentleman, his patron, — for 
whom, and for whomsoever he loved, he was ready to pour 
forth his heart’s blood, — to the effect that he would never 
quit her side when she left the roof of her house. 

“You see, Beppo,” she remonstrated, “ I am among 
friends.” 

Beppo gave a sweeping bow, but remained firm where he 
stood. Ammiani cast a sharp hard look at the man. 

“ Do you hear the signorina’s orders ? ” 

“ I hear them, signore.” 

“ Will you obey them ? ” 

She interposed. “ He must not hear quick words. Beppo 
is only showing his love for his master and for me. But 
you are wrong in this case, my Beppo. You shall give me 
your protection when I require it ; and now, you are sensi- 
ble, and must understand that it is not wanted. I tell you 
to go.” 

Beppo read the eyes of his young mistress. 

“ Signorina,” — he stooped forward mysteriously, — “sig- 
norina, that fellow is in Baveno. I saw him this morning.” 

“ Good, good. And now go, my friend.” 

“The signor Agostino,” he remarked loudly, to attract 
the old man ; “ the signor Agostino may think proper to 
advise you.” 

“ The signor Agostino will laugh at nothing that you say 
to-day, Beppo. You will obey me. Go at once,” she re- 
peated, seeing him on tiptoe to gain Agostino’s attention. 

Beppo knew by her eyes that her ears were locked against 
him 5 and, though she spoke softly, there was an imperious- 
ness in her voice not to be disregarded. He showed plainly 
by the lost rigidity of his attitude that he was beaten and 
perplexed. Further expostulations being disregarded, he 
turned his head to look at the poor panting beast under his 


18 


YITTORIA 


charge, and went slowly up to him : they walked off together, 
a crest-fallen pair. 

“ You have gained the victory, signorina,” said Ugo Corte. 

She replied, smiling, “My poor Beppo! it’s not difficult 
to get the best of those who love us.” 

“Ha!” cried Agostino; “here is one of their secrets, 
Carlo. Take heed of it, my boy. We shall have queens 
when kings are fossils, mark me ! ” 

Ammiani muttered a courtly phrase, whereat Corte 
yawned in very grim fashion. 

The signorina had dropped to the grass, at a short step 
from the Chief, to whom her face was now seriously given. 
In Ammiani’s sight she looked a dark Madonna, with the 
sun shining bright gold through the edges of the summer 
hat, thrown back from her head. The full and steady con- 
templative eyes had taken their fixed expression, after a 
vanishing affectionate gaze of an instant cast upon Agostino. 
Attentive as they were, light played in them like water. 
The countenance was vivid in repose. She leaned slightly 
forward, clasping the wrist of one hand about her knee, and 
the sole of one little foot showed from under her dress. 

Deliberately, but with no attempt at dramatic impressive- 
ness, the Chief began to speak. He touched upon the con- 
dition of Italy, and the new life animating her young men 
and women. “ I have heard many good men jeer,” he said, 
“ at our taking women to our counsel, accepting their help, 
and putting a great stake upon their devotion. You have 
read history, and you know what women can accomplish. 
They may be trained, equally as we are, to venerate the 
abstract idea of country, and be a sacrifice to it. Without 
their aid, and the fire of a fresh life being kindled in their 
bosoms, no country that has lain like ours in the death- 
trance can revive. In the death-trance, I say, for Italy does 
not die ! ” 

“ True,” said other voices. 

“ We have this belief in the eternal life of our country, 
and the belief is the life itself. But let no strong man 
among us despise the help of women. I have seen our 
cause lie desperate, and those who despaired of it were not 
women. Women kept the flame alive. They worship in 
the temple of the cause.” 


SIGNORINA VITTORIA 


19 


Ammiani’s eyes dwelt fervidly upon the signorina. Her 
look, which was fastened upon the Chief, expressed a mind 
that listened to strange matter concerning her very little. 
But when the plans for the rising of the Bergamascs and 
Brescians, the Venetians, the Bolognese, the Milanese, all 
the principal Northern cities, were recited, with a practical 
emphasis thrown upon numbers, upon the readiness of the 
organized bands, the dispositions of the leaders, and the 
amount of resistance to be expected at the various points 
indicated for the outbreak, her hands disjoined, and she 
stretched her fingers to the grass, supporting herself so, 
while her extended chin and animated features told how 
eagerly her spirit drank at positive springs, and thirsted for 
assurance of the coming storm. 

“It is decided that Milan gives the signal,” said the 
Chief ; and a light, like the reflection of a beacon-fire upon 
the night, flashed over her. 

He was pursuing, when Ugo Corte smote the air with his 
nervous fingers, crying out passionately, “ Bunglers ! are we 
again to wait for them, and hear that fifteen patriots have 
stabbed a Croat corporal, and wrestled hotly with a lieu- 
tenant of the guard ? I say they are bunglers. They never 
mean the thing. Fifteen ! There were just three Milanese 
among the last lot — the pick of the city ; and the rest were 
made up of Trentini, and our lads from Bergamo and Brescia ; 
and the order from the Council was , 1 Go and do the busi- 
ness ! ’ which means, ‘ Go and earn your ounce of Austrian 
lead/ They went, and we gave fifteen true men for one poor 
devil of a curst tight blue-leg. They can play the game on 
if we give them odds like that. Milan burns bad powder, 
and goes off like a drugged pistol. It’s a nest of bunglers, 
and may it be razed ! We could do without it, and well ! 
If it were a family failing, should not I too be trusting 
them ? My brother was one of the fifteen who marched out 
as targets to try the skill of those hell-plumed Tyrolese: 
and they did it thoroughly — shot him straight here.” Corte 
struck his chest. “He gave a jump and a cry. Was it a 
viva for Milan? They swear that it was, and they can’t 
translate from a living mouth, much more from a dead one ; 
but I know my Niccolo better. I have kissed his lips a 
thousand times, and I know the poor boy meant, ‘ Scorn and 


20 


VITTORIA 


eternal distrust of such peddling conspirators as these ! ’ 
I can deal with traitors, but these flash-in-the-pan plotters — 
these shaking, jelly-bodied patriots ! — trust to them again 
Rather draw lots for another' fifteen to bare their breasts 
and bandage their eyes, and march out in the grey morning, 
while the stupid Croat corporal goes on smoking his lumpy 
pipe ! We shall hear that Milan is moving ; we shall rise ; 
we shall be hot at it ; and the news will come that Milan has 
merely yawned and turned over to sleep on the other side. 
Twice she has done this trick, and the garrison there has 
sent five regiments to finish us — teach us to sleep soundly 
likewise ! I say, let it be Bergamo ; or be it Brescia, if you 
like ; or Venice : she is ready. You trust to Milan, and you 
are fore-doomed. I would swear it with this hand in the 
flames. She give the signal ? Shut your eyes, cross your 
hands flat on your breasts : you are dead men if you move. 
She lead the way ? Spin on your heels, and you have 
followed her ! ” 

Corte had spoken in a thick difficult voice, that seemed to 
require the aid of his vehement gestures to pour out as it 
did like a water-pipe in a hurricane of rain. He ceased, 
red almost to blackness, and knotted his arms, that were big 
as the cable of a vessel. Not a murmur followed his speech. 
The word was given to the Chief, and he resumed : — 

“You have a personal feeling in this case, Ugo. You 
have not heard me. I came through Paris. A rocket will 
soon shoot up from Paris that will be a signal for Christen- 
dom. The keen French wit is sick of its compromise-king. 
All Europe is in convulsions in a few months : to-morrow it 
may be. The elements are in the hearts of the people, and 
nothing will contain them. We have sown them to reap 
them. The sowing asks for persistency; but the reaping 
demands skill and absolute truthfulness. We have now one 
of those occasions coming which are the flowers to be plucked 
by resolute and worthy hands : they are the tests of our sin- 
cerity. This time now rapidly approaching will try us all, 
and we must be ready for it. If we have believed in it, we 
stand prepared. If we have conceived our plan of action in 
purity of heart, we shall be guided to discern the means 
which may serve us. You will know speedily what it is 
that has prompted you to move. If passion blindfolds you, 


SIGNORINA VITTORIA 


21 


if you are foiled by a prejudice, I also shall know. My 
friend, the nursing of a single antipathy is a presumption 
that your motive force is personal — whether the thirst for 
vengeance or some internal union of a hundred indistinct 
little fits of egoism. I have seen brave and even noble men 
fail at the ordeal of such an hour : not fail in courage, not 
fail in the strength of their desire ; that was the misery for 
them ! They failed because midway they lost the vision to 
select the right instruments put in our way by heaven. 
That vision belongs solely to such as have clean and dis- 
ciplined hearts. The hope in the bosom of a man whose 
fixed star is Humanity becomes a part of his blood, and is 
extinguished when his blood flows no more. To conquer 
him, the principle of life must be conquered. And he, my 
friend, will use all, because he serves all. I need not touch 
on Milan.” 

The signorina drew in her breath quickly, as if in this 
abrupt close she had a revelation of the Chief’s whole mean- 
ing, and was startled by the sudden unveiling of his mastery. 
Her hands hung loose ; her figure was tremulous. A mur- 
mur from Corte jarred within her like a furious discord, but 
he had not offended by refusing to disclaim his error, and 
had simply said in a gruff acquiescent way, “Proceed.” 
Her sensations of surprise at the singular triumph of the 
Chief made her look curiously into the faces of the other 
men ; but the pronouncing of her name engaged her atten- 
tion. 

“Your first night is the night of the fifteenth of next 
month ? ” 

“ It is, signore,” she replied, abashed to find herself speak- 
ing with him who had so moved her. 

“ There is no likelihood of a postponement ? ” 

“ I am certain, signore, that I shall be ready.” 

“ There are no squabbles of any serious kind among the 
singers ? ” 

A soft dimple played for a moment on her lips. “ I have 
heard something.” 

“ Among the women ? ” 

“ Yes, and the men.” 

“ But the men do not concern you ? ” 

“Ho, signore. Except that the women twist them.” 


22 


VITTORIA 


Agostino chuckled audibly. The Chief resumed : — 

“You believe, notwithstandin ■'-hat all will go well? 
The opera will be acted, and you w±il appear in it ? ” 

“ Yes, signore. I know one who has determined on it, and 
can do it.” 

“ Good. The opera is Camilla f ” 

She was answering with an affirmative, when Agostino 
broke in, — 

“ Camilla ! And honour to whom honour is due ! Let 
Caesar claim the writing of the libretto, if it be Caesar’s ! It 
has passed the censorship, signed Agostino Balderini — a 
disaffected person out of Piedmont, rendered tame and fang- 
less by a rigorous imprisonment. The sources of the tale, 

0 ye grave Signori Tedeschi ? The sources are partly to be 
traced to a neat little French vaudeville, very sparkling — 
Camille, or the Husband Asserted; and again to a certain 
Chronicle that may be mediaeval, may be modern, and is 
just, as the great Shakespeare would say, ‘ as you like it.’ ” 

Agostino recited some mock verses, burlesquing the or- 
dinary libretti, and provoked loud laughter from Carlo 
Ammiani, who was familiar enough with the run of their 
nonsense. 

“ Camilla is the bride of Camillo. I give to her all the 
brains, which is a modern idea, quite ! He does all the mis- 
chief, which is possibly mediaeval. They have both an 
enemy, which is mediaeval and modern. Hone of them 
know exactly what they are about ; so there you have the 
modern, the mediaeval, and the antique, all in one. Finally, 
my friends, Camilla is something for you to digest at leisure. 
The censorship swallowed it at a gulp. Never was bait 
so handsomely taken ! At present I have the joy of playing 
my fish. On the night of the fifteenth I land him. Camilla 
has a mother. Do you see ? That mother is reported, is 
generally conceived, as dead. Do you see further ? Camilla’s 
first song treats of a dream she has had of that mother. 
Our signorina shall not be troubled to favour you with a 
taste of it, or, by Bacchus and his Indian nymphs, I should 
speedily behold you jumping like peas in a pan, like trout 
on a bank ! The earth would be hot under you, verily ! As 

1 was remarking, or meant to be, Camilla and her husband 
disagree, having agreed to. ’Tis a plot to deceive Count 


SIGNORINA VITTORIA 


Orso — aha ? You are acquainted with Count Orso ! He is 
Camilla’s antenuptial gm in. Now you warm to it ! In 
that condition I leave you. ' Perhaps my child here will give 
you a taste of her voice. The poetry does much upon reflec- 
tion, but it has to ripen within you — a matter of time. 
Wed this voice to the poetry, and it finds passage ’twixt 
your ribs, as on the point of a driven blade. Do I cry the 
sweetness and the coolness of my melons ? Not I ! Try 
them.” 

The signorina put her hand out for the scroll he was 
unfolding, and cast her eyes along bars of music, while 
Agostino called a “ Silenzio tutti ! ” She sang one verse, 
and stopped for breath. 

Between her dismayed breathings she said to the Chief : — 

“ Believe me, signore, I can be trusted to sing when the 
time comes.” 

“ Sing on, my blackbird — my viola ! ” said Agostino. 
“We all trust you. Look at Colonel Corte, and take him 
for Count Orso. Take me for pretty Camillo. Take Marco 
for Michiela ; Giulio for Leonardo j Carlo for Cupid. Take 
the Chief for the audience. Take him for a frivolous public. 
Ah, my Pippo ! ” (Agostino laughed aside to him). “ Let us 
lead off with a lighter piece ; a trifle-tra-la-la ! and then let 
the frisky piccolo be drowned in deep organ notes, as on 
some occasions in history the people overrun certain puling 
characters. But that, I confess, is an illustration altogether 
out of place, and I’ll simply jot it down in my note-book.” 

Agostino had talked on to let her gain confidence. When 
he was silent she sang from memory. It was a song of 
flourishes : one of those be-flowered arias in which the notes 
flicker and leap like young flames. Others might have sung 
it ; and though it spoke favourably of her aptitude and 
musical education, and was of a quality to enrapture easy, 
merely critical audiences, it won no applause from these 
men. The effect produced by it was exhibited in the placid 
tolerance shown by the uplifting of Ugo Corte’s eyebrows, 
which said, "Well, here’s a voice, certainly.” His subse- 
quent look added, "Is this what we have come hither to 
hear ? ” 

Vittoria saw the look. “ Am I on my trial before you ? ” 
she thought ; and the thought nerved her throat. She sang 


24 


YITTORIA 


in strong and grave contralto tones, at first with shut eyes. 
The sense of hostility left her, and left her soul free, and 
she raised them. The song was of Camilla dying. She 
pardons the treacherous hand, commending her memory and 
the strength of her faith to her husband : — 

“ Beloved, I am quickly out of sight : 

I pray that you will love more than my dust. 

Were death defeat, much weeping would be right ; 

’Tis victory when it leaves surviving trust. 

You will not find me save when you forget 
Earth’s feebleness, and come to faith, my friend, 

Eor all Humanity doth owe a debt 
To all Humanity, until the end.” 

Agostino glanced at the Chief to see whether his ear had 
caught note of his own language. 

The melancholy severity of that song of death changed 
to a song of prophetic triumph. The signorina stood up. 
Camilla has thrown off the mask, and has sung the name 
“Italia ! ” At the recurrence of it the men rose likewise. 

“ Italia, Italia shall be free ! ” 

Vittoria gave the inspiration of a dying voice : the con- 
quest of death by an eternal truth seemed to radiate from 
her. Voice and features were as one expression of a rapture 
of belief built upon pathetic trustfulness. 

“ Italia, Italia shall be free ! ” 

She seized the hearts of those hard and serious men as a 
wind takes the strong oak-trees, and rocks them on their 
knotted roots, and leaves them with the song of soaring 
among their branches. Italy shone about her ; the lake, the 
plains, the peaks, and the shouldering flushed snow-ridges. 
Carlo Ammiani breathed as one who draws in fire. Grizzled 
Agostino glittered with suppressed emotion, like a frosted 
thorn-bush in the sunlight. Ugo Corte had his thick brows 
down, as a man who is reading iron matter. The Chief 
alone showed no sign beyond a half lifting of the hand, and 
a most luminous fixed observation of the fair young woman, 
from whom power was an emanation, free of effort. The 


AMMIANl’S INTERCESSION 


25 


gaze was sad in its thoughtfulness, such as our feelings 
translate of the light of evening. 

She ceased, and he said, “ You sing on the night of the 
fifteenth ? ” 

“I do, signore.” 

“ It is your first appearance ? ” 

She bent her head. 

“And you will be prepared on that night to sing this 
song ? ” 

“Yes, signore.” 

“ Save in the event of your being forbidden ? ” 

“Unless you shall forbid me, I will sing it, signore.” 

“ Should they imprison you ? ” 

“If they shoot me I shall be satisfied to know that I have 
sung a song that cannot be forgotten.” 

The Chief took her hand in a gentle grasp. 

“ Such as you will help to give our Italy freedom. You 
hold the sacred flame, and know you hold it in trust.” 

“ Friends,” — he turned to his companions, — “you have 
heard what will be the signal for Milan.” 


CHAPTER IV 

AMMIANl’s INTERCESSION 

It was a surprise to all of them, save to Agostino Balde- 
rini, who passed his inspecting glance from face to face, 
marking the effect of the announcement. Corte gazed at 
her heavily, but not altogether disapprovingly. G-iulio 
Bandinelli and Marco Sana, though evidently astonished, 
and to some extent incredulous, listened like the perfectly 
trusty lieutenants in an enterprise which they were. But 
Carlo Ammiani stood horror-stricken. The blood had left 
his handsome young olive-hued face, and his eyes were on 
the signorina, large with amazement, from which they 
deepened to piteousness of entreaty. 

“ Signorina ! — you ! Can it be true ? Do you know ? — 
do you mean it ? ” 


26 


VITTORIA 


“ What, signor Carlo ? ” 

“ This ; — will you venture to do such a thing ? ” 

“ Oh, will I venture ? What can you think of me ? It 
is my own request.” 

“ But, signorina, in mercy, listen and consider.” 

Carlo turned impetuously to the Chief. “ The signorina 
can’t know the danger she is running. She will be seized 
on the boards, and shut up between four walls before a man 
of us will be ready, — or more than one,” he added softly. 
“ The house is sure to be packed for a first night ; and the 
Polizia have a suspicion of her. She has been off her guard 
in the Conservatorio ; she has talked of a country called 
Italy ; she has been indiscreet ; — pardon, pardon, signorina ! 
but it is true that she has spoken out from her noble heart. 
And this opera ! Are they fools ? — they must see through 
it. It will never, — it can’t possibly be reckoned on to 
appear. I knew that the signorina was heart and soul 
with us ; but who could guess that her object was to sacri- 
fice herself in the front rank, — to lead a forlorn hope! I 
tell you it’s like a Pagan rite. You are positively slaying a 
victim. I beg you all to look at the case calmly ! ” 

A burst of laughter checked him ; for his seniors by 
many years could not hear such veteran’s counsel from a 
hurried boy without being shrewdly touched by the humour 
of it, while one or two threw a particular irony into their 
tones. 

“ When we do slay a victim, we will come to you as our 
augur, my Carlo,” said Agostino. 

Corte was less gentle. As a Milanese and a mere 
youth Ammiani was antipathetic to Corte, who closed his 
laughter with a windy rattle of his lips, and a “ pish ! ” of 
some emphasis. 

Carlo was quick to give him a challenging frown. 

“ What is it ? ” Corte bent his head back, as if in- 
quiringly. 

“ It’s I who claim that question by right,” said Carlo. 

“You are a boy.” 

“ I have studied war.” 

“In books.” 

“ With brains, Colonel Corte.” 

“War is a matter of blows, my little lad.” 


AMMIANl’S INTERCESSION 


27 


“ Let me inform you, signor Colonel, that war is not a 
game between bulls, to be played with the horns of the 
head.” 

“ You are prepared to instruct me ? ” The fiery Berga- 
masc lifted his eyebrows. 

“Nay, nay!” said Agostino. “Between us two first;” 
and he grasped Carlo’s arm, saying in an underbreath, 

“ Your last retort was too long-winded. In these conflicts 
you must be quick, sharp as a rifle-crack that hits echo on 
the breast-bone and makes her cry out. I correct a student 
in the art of war.” Then aloud : “ My opera, young man ! 
— well, it’s my libretto, and you know we writers always 
say ‘ my opera ’ when we have put the pegs for the voice ; 
you are certainly aware that we do. How dare you to make 
calumnious observations upon my opera ? Is it not the ripe 
and admirable fruit of five years of confinement ? Are not 
the lines sharp, the stanzas solid ? and the stuff, is it not 
good ? Is not the subject simple, pure from offence to 
sensitive authority, constitutionally harmless ? Beply ! ” 

“ It’s transparent to any but asses,” said Carlo. 

“But if it has passed the censorship? You are guilty, 
my boy, of bestowing upon those highly disciplined gentle- 
men who govern your famous city — what title? I trust a 
prophetic one, since that it comes from an animal whose 
custom is to turn its back before it delivers a blow, and is, 
they remark, fonder of encountering dead lions than live 
ones. Still, it is you who are indiscreet, — eminently so, I 9 
must add, if you will look lofty. If my opera has passed 
the censorship ! eh, what have you to say ? ” 

Carlo endured this banter till the end of it came. 

“ And you — you encourage her ! ” he cried wrathfully . 
“You know what the danger is for her, if they once lay 
hands on her. They will have her in Verona in four-and- 
twenty hours ; through the gates of the Adige in a couple 
of days, and at Spielberg, or some other of their infernal 
dens of groans, within a week. Where is the chance of a 
rescue then ? They torture, too, — they torture ! It’s a 
woman; and insult will be one mode of torturing her. 
They can use rods ” 

The excited Southern youth was about to cover his face, 
but caught back his hands, clenching them. 


28 


YITTORIA 


“All this,” said Agostino, “is an evasion, manifestly, of 
the question concerning my opera, on which you have 
thought proper to cast a slur. The phrase, 1 transparent to 
any but asses/ may not be absolutely objectionable, for 
transparency is, as the critics rightly insist, meritorious in 
a composition. And, according to the other view, if we 
desire our clever opponents to see nothing in something, it 
is notably skilful to let them see through it. You perceive, 
my Carlo. Transparency, then, deserves favourable com- 
ment. So, I do not complain of your phrase, but I had the 
unfortunate privilege of hearing it uttered. The method 
of delivery scarcely conveyed a compliment. Will you 
apologize ? ” 

Carlo burst from him with a vehement question to the 
Chief : “ Is it decided ? ” 

“ It is, my friend ; ” was the reply. 

“Decided! She is doomed! Signorina! what can you 
know of this frightful risk? You are going to the slaughter. 
You will be seized before the first verse is out of your lips, 
and once in their clutches, you will never breathe free air 
again. It’s madness ! — ah, forgive me ! — yes, madness ! 
Tor you shut your eyes ; you rush into the trap blindfolded. 
And that is how you serve our Italy! She sees you an 
instant, and you are caught away; — and you who might 
serve her, if you would, do you think you can move dungeon 
walls ? ” 

“Perhaps, if I have been once seen, I shall not be for- 
gotten,” said the signorina smoothly, and then cast her 
eyes down, as if she felt the burden of a little possible 
accusation of vanity in this remark. She raised them with 
fire. 

“No; never!” exclaimed Carlo. “But, now you are 
ours. And — surely it is not quite decided?” 

He had spoken imploringly to the Chief. “Not irrevo- 
cably ? ” he added. 

“ Irrevocably ! ” 

“ Then she is lost ! ” 

“Tor shame, Carlo Ammiani;” said old Agostino, casting 
his sententious humours aside. “ Do you not hear ? It is 
decided ! Do you wish to rob her of her courage, and see 
her tremble ? It’s her scheme and mine : a case where an 


AMMIANl’S INTERCESSION 29 

old head approves a young one. The Chief says Yes ! and 
you bellow still ! Is it a Milanese trick ? Be silent.” 

“ Be silent ! ” echoed Carlo. “ Do you remember the beast 
Marschatska’s bet ? ” The allusion was to a black incident 
concerning a young Italian ballet girl who had been carried 
off by an Austrian officer, under the pretext of her com- 
plicity in one of the antecedent conspiracies. 

“ He rendered payment for it,” said Agostino. 

“ He perished ; yes ! as we shake dust to the winds ; but 
she! — it’s terrible ! You place women in the front ranks 
— girls ! What can defenceless creatures do? Would you 
let the van-regiment in battle be the one without weapons ? 
It’s slaughter. She’s like a lamb to them. You hold up 
your jewel to the enemy, and cry, ‘Come and take it.’ 
Think of the insults ! think of the rough hands, and foul 
mouths ! She will be seized on the boards ” 

“ Not if you keep your tongue from wagging,” interposed 
Ugo Corte, fevered by this unseasonable exhibition of what 
was to him manifestly a lover’s frenzied selfishness. He 
moved off, indifferent to Carlo’s retort. Marco Sana and 
Giulio Bandinelli were already talking aside with the 
Chief. 

“ Signor Carlo, not a hand shall touch me,” said the 
signorina. “ And I am not a lamb, though it is good of you 
to think me one. I passed through the streets of Milan in 
the last rising. I was unharmed. You must have some 
confidence in me.” 

“ Signorina, there’s the danger,” rejoined Carlo. “You 
trust to your good angels once, twice — the third time they 
fail you ! What are you among a host of armed savages ? 
You would be tossed like weed on the sea. In pity, do not 
look so scornfully ! No, there is no unjust meaning in it ; 
but you despise me for seeing danger. Can nothing per- 
suade you ? And, besides,” he addressed the Chief, who 
alone betrayed no signs of weariness ; “ listen, I beg of you. 
Milan wants no more than a signal. She does not require 
to be excited. I came charged with several proposals for 
giving the alarm. Attend, you others ! The night of the 
Fifteenth comes ; it is passing like an ordinary night. At 
twelve a fire-balloon is seen in the sky. Listen, in the 
name of saints and devils ! ” 


30 


VITTORIA 


But even the Chief was observed to show signs of amuse- 
ment, and the gravity of the rest forsook them altogether 
at the display of this profound and original conspiratorial 
notion. 

“ Excellent ! excellent ! my Carlo,” said old Agostino, 
cheerfully. “ You have thought. You must have thought, 
or whence such a conception ? But, you really mistake. It 
is not the garrison whom we desire to put on their guard. 
By no means. We are not in the Imperial pay. Probably 
your balloon is to burst in due time, and, wind permitting, 
disperse printed papers all over the city ? ” 

“ What if it is ? ” cried Carlo fiercely. 

“Exactly. I have divined your idea. You have thought, 
or, to correct the tense, are thinking, which is more hopeful, 
though it may chance not to seem so meritorious. But, if 
yours are the ideas of full-blown jackets, bear in mind that 
our enemies are coated and breeched. It may be creditable 
to you that your cunning is not the cunning of the serpent; 
to us it would be more valuable if it were. Continue.” 

“ Oh ! there are a thousand ways.” Carlo controlled him- 
self with a sharp screw of all his muscles. “ I simply wish 
to save the signorina from an annoyance.” 

“ Very mildly put,” Agostino murmured assentingly. 

“In our Journal,” said Carlo, holding out the palm of one 
hand to dot the forefinger of the other across it, by way of 
personal illustration — “in our Journal we might arrange 
for certain letters to recur at distinct intervals in Boman 
capitals, which might spell out, ‘this night at twelve/ 
or ‘ at one.’ ” 

“ Quite as ingenious, but on the present occasion erring 
on the side of intricacy. Aha! you want to increase the 
sale of your Journal, do you, my boy ? The rogue ! ” 

With which, and a light slap over Carlo’s shoulder, 
Agostino left him. 

The aspect of his own futile proposals stared the young 
man in the face too forcibly for him to nurse the spark 
of resentment which was struck out in the turmoil of his 
bosom. He veered, as if to follow Agostino, and remained 
midway, his chest heaving, and his eyelids shut. 

“ Signor Carlo, I have not thanked you.” He heard 
Yittoria speak. “ I know that a woman should never 


AMMIANl’s INTERCESSION 


31 


attempt to do men’s work. The Chief will tell you that 
we must all serve now, and all do our best. If we fail, and 
they put me to great indignity, I promise you that I will 
not live. I would give this up to be done by anyone else 
who could do it better. It is in my hands, and my friends 
must encourage me.” 

“ Ah, signorina ! ” the young man sighed bitterly. The 
knowledge that he had already betrayed himself in the 
presence of others too far, and the sob in his throat labour- 
ing to escape, kept him still. 

A warning call from Ugo Corte drew their attention. 
Close by the chalet where the first climbers of the moun- 
tain had refreshed themselves, Beppo was seen struggling 
to secure the arms of a man in a high-crowned green Swiss 
hat, who was apparently disposed to give the signorina’s 
faithful servant some trouble. After gazing a minute at 
this singular contention, she cried — 

“ It’s the same who follows me everywhere ! ” 

“ And you will not believe you are suspected,” murmured 
Carlo in her ear. 

“A spy?” Sana queried, showing keen joy at the pros- 
pect of scotching such a reptile on the lonely height. 

Corte went up to the Chief. They spoke briefly together, 
making use of notes and tracings on paper. The Chief then 
said “ Adieu” to the signorina. It was explained to the 
rest by Corte that he had a meeting to attend near Pella 
about noon, and must be in Fobello before midnight. Thence 
his way would be to Genoa. 

“ So, you are resolved to give another trial to our crowned 
ex-Carbonaro,” said Agostino. 

“ Without leaving him an initiative this time ! ” and the 
Chief embraced the old man. “You know me upon that 
point. I cannot trust him. I do not. But, if we make 
such a tide in Lombardy that his army must be drawn into 
it, is such an army to be refused? First, the tide, my 
friend ! See to that.” 

“ The king is our instrument ! ” cried Carlo Ammiani, 
brightening. 

“Yes, if we were particularly well skilled in the use of 
that kind of instrument,” Agostino muttered. 

He stood apart while the Chief said a few words to Carlo 


82 


VITTORIA 


which made the blood play vividly across the visage of the 
youth. Carlo tried humbly to expostulate once or twice. 
In the end his head was bowed, and he signified a dumb 
acquiescence. 

“ Once more; good-bye.” The Chief addressed the sig- 
norina in English. 

She replied in the same tongue, “ Good-bye,” tremulously ; 
and passion mounting on it, added — “ Oh ! when shall I 
see you again ? ” 

“ When Rome is purified to be a fit place for such as 
you.” 

In another minute he was hidden on the slope of the 
mountain lying toward Orta. 


CHAPTER V 

THE SPY 

Beppo had effected a firm capture of his man some way 
down the slope. But it was a case of check that entirely 
precluded his own free movements. They hung together 
intertwisted in the characters of specious pacificator and 
appealing citizen, both breathless. 

“There! you want to hand me up neatly; I know your 
vanity, my Beppo; and you don't even know my name,” 
said the prisoner. 

“I know your ferret of a face well enough,” said Beppo. 
“You dog the signorina. Come up, and don’t give trouble.” 

“Am I not a sheep? You worry me. Let me go.” 

“You’re a wriggling eel.” 

“Catch me fast by the tail then, and don’t hold me by 
the middle.” 

“You wailt frightening, my pretty fellow! ” 

“If that’s true, my Beppo, somebody made a mistake in 
sending you to do it. Stop a moment. You’re blown. I 
think you gulp down your minestra too hot; you drink 
beer.” 

“You dog the signorina! I swore to scotch you at last.” 


THE SPY 


33 


“I left Milan for the purpose — don’t yon see? Act 
fairly, my Beppo, and let ns go np to the signorina together 
decently.” 

“A y, ay, my little reptile! You’ll find no Austrians 
here. Cry out to them to come to you from Laveno. If 
the Motterone grew just one tree! Saints! one would 
serve.” 

“ Why don’t you — fool that you are, my Beppo ! — pray 
to the saints earlier? Trees don’t grow from heaven.” 

“ You’ll be going there soon, and you’ll know better 
about it.” 

“ Thanks to the Virgin, then, we shall part at some time 
or other ! ” 

The struggles between them continued sharply during 
this exchange of intellectual shots; but hearing Ugo Corte’s 
voice, the prisoner’s confident audacity forsook him, and he 
drew a long tight face like the mask of an admonitory 
exclamation addressed to himself from within. 

“ Stand up straight ! ” the soldier’s command was uttered. 

Even Beppo was amazed to see that the man had lost the 
power to obey or to speak. 

Corte grasped him under the arm-pit. With the force 
of his huge fist he swung him round and stretched him out 
at arm’s-length, all collar and shanks. The man hung like 
a mole from the twig. Yet, while Beppo poured out the 
tale of his iniquities, his eyes gave the turn of a twinkle, 
showing that he could have answered one whom he did not 
fear. The charge brought against him was, that for the 
last six months he had been untiringly spying on the 
signorina. 

Corte stamped his loose feet to earth, shook him and told 
him to walk aloft. The flexible voluble fellow had evi- 
dently become miserably disconcerted. He walked in trepi- 
dation, speechless, and when interrogated on the height 
his eyes flew across the angry visages with dismal uncer- 
tainty. Agostino perceived that he had undoubtedly not 
expected to come among them, and forthwith began to 
excite Giulio and Marco to the worst suspicions, in order 
to indulge his royal poetic soul with a study of a timorous 
wretch pushed to anticipations of extremity. 

“The execution of a spy,” he preluded, “is the signal 


34 


VITTORIA 


for the ringing of joy -bells on this earth; not only because 
he is one of a pestiferous excess, in point of numbers, but 
that he is no true son of earth. He escaped out of helPs 
doors on a windy day, and all that we do is to puff: out a 
bad light, and send him back. Look at this fellow in whom 
conscience is operating so that he appears like a corked 
volcano! You can see that he takes Austrian money; his 
skin has got to be the exact colour of Miinz. He has the 
greenish-yellow eyes of those elective, thrice-abhorred 
vampyres who feed on patriot-blood. He is condemned 
without trial by his villanous countenance, like an ungram- 
matical preface to a book. His tongue refuses to confess, 
but nature is stronger: — observe his knees. How this is 
guilt. It is execrable guilt. He is a nasty object. Nature 
has in her wisdom shortened his stature to indicate that it 
is left to us to shorten the growth of his offending years. 
Now, you dangling soul! answer me: — what name hailed 
you when on earth? ” 

The man, with no clearly serviceable tongue, articulated, 
" Luigi.” 

“ Luigi! the name Christian and distinctive. The name 
historic : — Luigi Porco? ” 

“Luigi Saracco, signore.” 

“ Saracco : Saracco : very possibly a strip of the posterity 
of cut-throat Moors. To judge by your face, a Moor un- 
doubtedly: glib, slippery! with a body that slides and a 
soul that jumps. Taken altogether, more serpent than 
eagle. I misdoubt that little quick cornering eye of yours. 
Do you ever remember to have blushed? ” 

“No, signore,” said Luigi. 

“You spy upon the signorina, do you?” 

“You have Beppo’s word for that,” interposed Marco 
Sana, growling. 

“And you are found spying on the mountain this par- 
ticular day ! Luigi Saracco, you are a fellow of a tremen- 
dous composition. A goose walking into a den of foxes is 
alone to be compared to you, — if ever such goose was! 
How many of us did you count, now, when you were, say, 
a quarter of a mile below?” 

Marco interposed again: “He has already seen enough 
up here to make a rope of florins.” 


THE SPY 


35 


“The fellow’s eye takes likenesses,” said G-iulio. 

Agostino’s question was repeated by Corte, and so sternly 
that Luigi, beholding kindness upon no other face save 
Yittoria’s, watched her, and muttering “Six,” blinked his 
keen black eyes piteously to get her sign of assent to his 
hesitated naming of that number. Her mouth and the turn 
of her head were expressive to him, and he cried “Seven.” 

“So; first six, and next seven,” said Corte. 

“Six, I meant, without the signorina,” Luigi explained. 

“You saw six of us without the signorina! You see 
we are six here, including the signorina. Where is the 
seventh?” 

Luigi tried to penetrate Yittoria’s eyes for a proper 
response; but she understood the grave necessity for get- 
ting the full extent of his observations out of him, and she 
looked as remorseless as the men. He feigned stupidity 
and sullenness, rage and cunning, in quick succession. 

“ Who was the seventh?” said Carlo. 

“Was it the king?” Luigi asked. 

This was by just a little too clever; and its cleverness, 
being seen, magnified the intended evasion so as to make 
it appear to them that Luigi knew well the name of the 
seventh. 

Marco thumped a hand on his shoulder, shouting — 

“Here; speak out! You saw seven of us. Where has 
the seventh one gone?” 

Luigi’s wits made a dash at honesty. “Down Orta, sig- 
nore.” 

“ And down Orta, I think, you will go ; deeper down than 
you may like.” 

Corte now requested Yittoria to stand aside. He motioned 
to her with his hand to stand farther, and still farther off; 
and finally told Carlo to escort her to Baveno. She now 
began to think that the man Luigi was in some perceptible 
danger, nor did Ammiani disperse the idea. 

“If he is a spy, and if he has seen the Chief, we shall 
have to detain him for at least four-and-twenty hours,” he 
said, “or do worse.” 

“But, signor Carlo,” — Yittoria made appeal to his 
humanity, — “do they mean, if they decide that he is 
guilty, to hurt him?” 


36 


VITTORIA 


“ Tell me, signorina, what punishment do you imagine a 
spy deserves?” 

“ To be called one ! ” 

Carlo smiled at her lofty method of dealing with the 
animal. 

“Then you presume him to have a conscience?” 

“ I am sure, signor Carlo, that 1 could make him loathe 
to be called a spy.” 

They were slowly pacing from the group, and were on 
the edge of the descent, when the signorina’ s name was 
shrieked by Luigi. The man came running to her for pro- 
tection, Beppo and the rest at his heels. She allowed him 
to grasp her hand. 

“After all, he is my spy; he does belong to me,” she 
said, still speaking on to Carlo. “ I must beg your permis- 
sion, Colonel Corte and signor Marco, to try an experiment. 
The signor Carlo will not believe that a spy can be ashamed 
of his name. — Luigi ! ” 

“Signorina! ” — he shook his body over her hand with a 
most plaintive utterance. 

“ You are my countryman, Luigi? ” 

“Yes, signorina.” 

“You are an Italian? ” 

“Certainly, signorina!” 

“ A spy ! ” 

Yittoria had not always to lift her voice in music for it 
to sway the hearts of men. She spoke the word very 
simply in a mellow soft tone. Luigi’s blood shot purple. 
He thrust his fists against his ears. 

“See, signor Carlo,” she said; “I was right. Luigi, you 
will be a spy no more?” 

Carlo Ammiani happened to be rolling a cigarette-paper. 
She put out her fingers for it, and then reached it to Luigi, 
who accepted it with singular contortions of his frame, 
declaring that he would confess everything to her. “Yes, 
signorina, it is true; I am a spy on you. I know the 
houses you visit. I know you eat too much chocolate for 
your voice. I know you are the friend of the signora 
Laura, the widow of Giacomo Piaveni, shot — shot on 
Annunciation Day. The Virgin bless him! I know the 
turning of every street from your house near the Duomo to 


THE SPY 


37 


the signora’s. You go nowhere else, except to the maes- 
tro’s. And it’s something to spy upon you. But think of 
your Beppo who spies upon me / And your little mother, 
the lady most excellent, is down in Baveno, and she is 
always near you when you make an expedition. Signorina, 
I know you would not pay your Beppo for spying upon me. 
Why does he do it? I do not sing ‘Italia, Italia shall be 
free! ’ I have heard you when I was under the maestro’s 
windows; and once you sang it to the signor Agostino 
Balderini. Indeed, signorina, I am a sort of guardian of 
your voice. It is not gold of the Tedeschi I get from the 
signor Antonio-Pericles ” 

At the mention of this name, Agostino and Yittoria 
laughed out. 

“ You are in the pay of the signor Antonio-Pericles,” said 
Agostino. “Without being in our pay, you have done us 
the service to come up here among us? Bravo! In return 
for your disinterestedness, we kick you down, either upon 
Baveno or upon Stresa, or across the lake, if you prefer it. 
— The man is harmless. He is hired by a particular wor- 
shipper of the signorina’s voice, who affects to have first 
discovered it when she was in England, and is a connoisseur, 
a millionaire, a Greek, a rich scoundrel, with one indubi- 
table passion, for which I praise him. We will let his paid 
eavesdropper depart, I think. He is harmless.” 

Neither Ugo nor Marco were disposed to allow any de- 
scription of spy to escape unscotched. Vittoria saw that 
Luigi’s looks were against him, and whispered: “Why do 
you show such cunning eyes, Luigi?” 

He replied : “ Signorina, take me out of their hearing, 
and I will tell you everything.” 

She walked aside. He seemed immediately to be inspired 
with confidence, and stretched his fingers in the form of a 
grasshopper, at which sight they cried: “He knows Barto 
Rizzo — this rascal!” They plied him with signs and 
countersigns, and speedily let him go. There ensued a 
sharp snapping of altercation between Luigi and Beppo. 
Vittoria had to order Beppo to stand back. 

“It is a poor dog, not of a good breed, signorina,” Luigi 
said, casting a tolerant glance over his shoulder. “ Faith- 
ful, but a poor nose. Ah! you gave me this cigarette. 


88 


YITTORIA 


Not the Virgin could have touched my marrow as you did. 
That’s to be remembered by-and-by. Now, you are going 
to sing on the night of the fifteenth of September. Change 
that night. The signor Antonio-Pericles watches you, and 
he is a friend of the Government, and the Government is 
snoring for you to think it asleep. The signor Antonio- 
Pericles pacifies the Tedeschi, but he will know all that 
you are doing, and how easy it will be, and how simple, for 
you to let me know what you think he ought to know, and 
just enough to keep him comfortable! So we work like a 
machine, signorina. Only, not through that Beppo, for he 
is vain of his legs, and his looks, and his service, and be- 
cause he has carried a gun and heard it go off. Yes; I am 
a spy. But I am honest. I, too, have visited England. 
One can be honest and a spy. Signorina, I have two arms, 
but only one heart. If you will be gracious and consider ! 
Say, here are two hands. One hand does this thing, one 
hand does that thing, and that thing wipes out this thing. 
It amounts to clear reasoning! Here are two eyes. Were 
they meant to see nothing but one side! Here is a tongue 
with a line down the middle almost to the tip of it — which 
is for service. That Beppo couldn’t deal double, if he 
would; for he is imperfectly designed — a mere dog’s 
pattern! But, only one heart, signorina — mind that. I 
will never forget the cigarette. I shall smoke it before I 
leave the mountain, and think — oh ! ” 

Having illustrated the philosophy of his system, Luigi 
continued: “I am going to tell you everything. Pray, do 
not look on Beppo! This is important. The signor 
Antonio-Pericles sent me to spy on you, because he ex- 
pects some people to come up the mountain, and you know 
them; and one is an Austrian officer, and he is an English- 
man by birth, and he is coming to meet some English 
friends who enter Italy from Switzerland over the Moro, 
and easily up here on mules or donkeys from Pella. The 
signor Antonio-Pericles has gold ears for everything that 
concerns the signorina. ‘A patriot is she!’ he says; and 
he is jealous of your English friends. He thinks they will 
distract you from your studies ; and perhaps ” — Luigi 
nodded sagaciously before he permitted himself to say — 
“ perhaps he is jealous in another way. I have heard him 


THE SPY 


39 


speak like a sonnet of the signorina’s beauty. The signor 
Antonio-Pericles thinks that you have come here to-day to 
meet them. When he heard that you were going to leave 
Milan for Baveno, he was mad, and with two fists up, 
against all English persons. The Englishman who is an 
Austrian officer is quartered at Verona, and the signor 
Antonio-Pericles said that the Englishman should not meet 
you yet, if he could help it.” 

Vittoria stood brooding. “Who can it be, — who is an 
Englishman, and an Austrian officer, and knows me?” 

“Signorina, I don’t know names. Behold, that Beppo 
is approaching like the snow ! What I entreat is, that the 
signorina will wait a little for the English party, if they 
come, so that I may have something to tell my patron. To 
invent upon nothing is most unpleasant, and the signor 
Antonio can soon perceive whether one swims with corks. 
Signorina, I can dance on one rope — I am a man. I am 
not a midge — I cannot dance upon nothing.” 

The days of Vittoria’s youth had been passed in England. 
It was not unknown to her that old English friends were 
on the way to Italy ; the recollection of a quiet and a buried 
time put a veil across her features. She was perplexed by 
the mention of the Austrian officer by Luigi, as one may be 
who divines the truth too surely, but will not accept it for 
its loathsomeness. There were Englishmen in the army 
of Austria. Could one of them be this one whom she had 
cared for when she was a girl? It seemed hatefully cruel 
to him to believe it. She spoke to Agostino, begging him 
to remain with her on the height awhile to see whether the 
signor Antonio-Pericles was right; to see whether Luigi 
was a truth-teller; to see whether these English persons 
were really coming. “Because,” she said, “if they do 
come, it will at once dissolve any suspicions you may have 
of this Luigi. And I always long so much to know if the 
signor Antonio is correct. I have never yet known him to 
be wrong.” 

“And you want to see these English,” said Agostino. 
He frowned. 

“ Only ter hear them. They shall not recognize me. I 
have now another name; and I am changed. My hat is 
enough to hide me. Let me hear them talk a little. You 


40 


VITTORIA 


and the signor Carlo will stay with me, and when they 
come, if they do come, I will remain no longer than just 
sufficient to make sure. I would refuse to know any of 
them before the night of the fifteenth; I want my strength 
too much. I shall have to hear a misery from them; — I 
know it; I feel it; it turns my blood. But let me hear 
their voices! England is half my country, though I am so 
willing to forget her and give all my life to Italy. Stay 
with me, dear friend, my best father ! humour me, for you 
know that I am always charming when I am humoured.” 

Agostino pressed his finger on a dimple in her cheeks. 
“You can afford to make such a confession as that to a 
greybeard. The day is your own. Bear in mind that you 
are so situated that it will be prudent for you to have no 
fresh relations, either with foreigners or others, until your 
work is done, — in which, my dear child, may God bless 
you ! ” 

“I pray to him with all my might,” Yittoria said in reply. 

After a consultation with Agostino, Ugo Corte and Marco 
and Giulio bade their adieux to her. The task of keeping 
Luigi from their clutches was difficult; but Agostino helped 
her in that also. To assure them, after his fashion, of the 
harmlessness of Luigi, he seconded him in a contest of wit 
against Beppo, and the little fellow, now that he had shaken 
off his fears, displayed a quickness of retort and a liveliness 
“unknown to professional spies and impossible to the race,” 
said Agostino; “so absolutely is the mind of man blunted 
by Austrian gold. We know that for a fact. Beppo is no 
match for him. Beppo is sententious; ponderously illus- 
trative; he can’t turn; he is long-winded; he, I am afraid, 
my Carlo, studies the journals. He has got your journal- 
istic style, wherein words of six syllables form the relief 
to words of eight, and hardly one dares to stand by itself. 
They are like huge boulders across a brook. The meaning , 
do you see, would run of itself, but you give us these im- 
pedimenting big stones to help us over it, while we profess 
to understand you by implication. For my part, I own, 
that to me, your parliamentary, illegitimate academic, 
modern crocodile phraseology, which is formidable in the 
jaws, impenetrable on the back, can’t circumvent a corner, 
and is enabled to enter a common understanding solely 


THE WARNING 


41 


by having a special highway prepared for it, — in short, 
the writing in your journals is too much for me. Beppo 
here is an example that the style is useless for controversy. 
This Luigi baffles him at every step.” 

“Some,” rejoined Carlo, “say that Beppo has had the 
virtue to make you his study.” 

Agostino threw himself on his back and closed his eyes. 
“ That, then, is more than you have done, signor Tuquoque. 
Look on the Bernina yonder, and fancy you behold a rout 
of phantom Goths ; a sleepy rout, new risen, with the blood 
of old battles on their shroud-shirts, and a North-east wind 
blowing them upon our fat land. Or take a turn at the 
other side toward Orta, and look out for another invasion, 
by no means so picturesque, but preferable. Tourists ! Do 
you hear them? ” 

Carlo Ammiani had descried the advanced troop of a pro- 
cession of gravely -heated climbers — ladies upon donkeys, 
and pedestrian guards stalking beside them, with courier, 
and lacqueys, and baskets of provisions, all bearing the 
stamp of pilgrims from the great Western Island. 


CHAPTER VI 

THE WARNING 

A mountain ascended by these children of the forcible 
Isle, is a mountain to be captured, and colonized, and abso- 
lutely occupied for a term; so that Vittoria soon found 
herself and her small body of adherents observed, and even 
exclaimed against, as a sort of intruding aborigines, whose 
presence entirely dispelled the sense of romantic dominion 
which a mighty eminence should give, and which Britons 
expect when they have expended a portion of their energies. 
The exclamations were not complimentary; nevertheless, 
Vittoria listened with pleased ears, as one listens by a 
brookside near an old home, hearing a music of memory 
rather than common words. They talked of heat, of appe- 
tite, of chill, of thirst, of the splendour of the prospect, of 


42 


VITTOKIA 


the anticipations of good hotel accommodation below, of the 
sadness superinduced by the reflection that in these days 
people were found everywhere, and poetry was thwarted; 
again of heat, again of thirst, of beauty, and of chill. 
There was the enunciation of matronly advice; there was 
the outcry of girlish insubordination; there were sighings 
for English ale, and namings of the visible ranges of peaks, 
and indicatings of geographical fingers to show where 
Switzerland and Piedmont met, and Austria held her grasp 
on Lombardy; and “to this point we go to-night; yonder 
to-morrow; farther the next day,” was uttered, soberly or 
with excitement, as befitted the age of the speaker. 

Among these tourists there was one very fair English 
lady, with long auburn curls of the traditionally English 
pattern, and the science of Paris displayed in her bonnet 
and dress; which, if not as graceful as severe admirers of 
the antique in statuary or of the mediaeval in drapery 
demand, pleads prettily to be thought so, and commonly 
succeeds in its object, when assisted by an artistic feminine 
manner. Yittoria heard her answer to the name of Mrs. 
Sedley. She had once known her as a Miss Adela Pole. 
Amidst the cluster of assiduous gentlemen surrounding this 
lady it was difficult for Yittoria’ s stolen glances to discern 
her husband; and the moment she did discern him she 
became as indifferent to him as was his young wife, by 
every manifestation of her sentiments. Mrs. Sedley in- 
formed her lord that it was not expected of him to care, 
or to pretend to care, for such scenes as the Motterone 
exhibited; and having dismissed him to the shade of an 
umbrella near the provision baskets, she took her station 
within a few steps of Vittoria, and allowed her attendant 
gentlemen to talk while she remained plunged in a medita- 
tive rapture at the prospect. The talk indicated a settled 
scheme for certain members of the party to reach Milan 
from the Como road. Mrs. Sedley was asked if she expected 
her brother to join her here or in Milan. 

“Here, if a man’s promises mean anything,” she replied 
languidly. 

She was told that some one waved a handkerchief to them 
from below. 

“Is he alone?” she said; and directing an opera-glass 


THE WARNING 


43 


upon the slope of the mountain, pursued, as in a dreamy 
disregard of circumstances : — “ That is Captain Gambier. 
My brother Wilfrid has not kept his appointment. Per- 
haps he could not get leave from the General ; perhaps he 
is married; he is engaged to an Austrian countess, I have 
heard. Captain Gambier did me the favour to go round to 
a place called Stresa to meet him. He has undertaken the 
journey for nothing. It is the way with all journeys — 
though this ” (the lady had softly reverted to her rapture) 
— “this is too exquisite! Nature at least does not de- 
ceive.” 

’ Yittoria listened to a bubbling of meaningless chatter, 
until Captain Gambier had joined Mrs. Sedley ; and at him, 
for she had known him likewise, she could not forbear 
looking up. He was speaking to Mrs. Sedley, but caught 
the look, and bent his head for a clearer view of the features 
under the broad straw hat. Mrs. Sedley commanded him 
imperiously to say on. 

“Have you no letter from Wilfrid? Has the mountain 
tired you ? Has Wilfrid failed to send his sister one 
word? Surely Mr. Pericles will have made known our 
exact route to him? And his uncle, General Pierson, 
could — I am certain he did — exert his influence to pro- 
cure him leave for a single week to meet the dearest mem- 
ber of his family.” 

Captain Gambier gathered his wits to give serviceable 
response to the kindled lady, and letting his eyes fall from 
time to time on the broad straw hat, made answ r er — 

“ Lieutenant Pierson, or, in other words, Wilfrid Pole ” 

The lady stamped her foot and flushed. 

“You know, Augustus, I detest that name.” 

“Pardon me a thousandfold. I had forgotten.” 

“What has happened to you?” 

Captain Gambier accused the heat. 

“I found a letter from Wilfrid at the hotel. He is 
apparently kept on constant service between Milan, and 
Verona, and Venice. His quarters are at Verona. He 
informs me that he is to be married in the Spring; that is, 
if all continues quiet; married in the Spring. He seems 
to fancy that there may be disturbances; not of a serious 
kind, of course. He will meet you in Milan. He has 


44 


VITTORIA 


never been permitted to remain at Milan longer than a 
couple of days at a stretch. Pericles has told him that she 
is in Plorence. Pericles has told me that Miss Belloni has 
removed to Plorence.” 

“Say it a third time,” the lady indulgently remarked. 

“I do not believe that she has gone.” 

“I dare say not.” 

“She has changed her name, you know.” 

“ Oh, dear, yes ; she has done something fantastic, natu- 
rally ! For my part, I should have thought her own good 
enough.” 

“ Emilia Alessandra Belloni is good enough, certainly,-” 
said Captain Gambier. 

The shading straw rim had shaken once during the collo- 
quy. It was now a fixed defence. 

“What is her new name?” Mrs. Sedley inquired. 

“That I cannot tell. Wilfrid merely mentions that he 
has not seen her.” 

“I,” said Mrs. Sedley, “when I reach Milan, shall not 
trust to Mr. Pericles, but shall write to the Conservatorio ; 
for if she is going to be a great cantatrice, — really, it will 
be agreeable to renew acquaintance with her. Nor will it 
do any mischief to Wilfrid, now that he is engaged. Are 
you very deeply attached to straw hats? They are sweet 
in a landscape.” 

Mrs. Sedley threw him a challenge from her blue eyes; 
but his reply to it was that of an unskilled youth, who reads 
a lady by the letters of her speech: — “ One minute. I will 
be with you instantly. I want to have a look down on the 
lake. I suppose this is one of the most splendid views in 
Italy. Half-a-minute ! ” 

Captain Gambier smiled brilliantly; and the lady, per- 
ceiving that polished shield, checked the shot of indignation 
on her astonished features, and laid it by. But the aston- 
ishment lingered there, like the lines of a slackened bow. 
She beheld her ideal of an English gentleman place himself 
before these recumbent foreign people, and turn to talk 
across them, with a pertinacious pursuit of the face under 
the bent straw hat. Nor was it singular to her that one of 
them at last should rise and protest against the continuation 
of the impertinence. 


THE WARNING 45 

Carlo Ammiani, in fact, had. opened matters with a 
scrupulously-courteous bow. 

“ Monsieur is perhaps unaware that he obscures the out- 
look?” 

“Totally, monsieur,” said Captain Gambier, and stood 
fast. 

“Will monsieur do me the favour to take three steps 
either to the right or to the left?” 

“Pardon, monsieur, but the request is put almost in the 
form of an order.” 

“ Simply if it should prove inefficacious in the form of a 
request.” 

“ What, may I ask, monsieur, is your immediate object? ” 

“To entreat you to behave with civility.” 

“I am at a loss, monsieur, to perceive any offence.” 

“Permit me to say, it is lamentable you do not know 
when you insult a lady.” 

“ I have insulted a lady? ” Captain Gambier looked pro- 
foundly incredulous. “Oh! then you will not take excep- 
tion to my assuming the privilege to apologize to her in 
person?” 

Ammiani arrested him as he was about to pass. 

“Stay, monsieur; you determine to be impudent, I per- 
ceive; you shall not be obtrusive.” 

Yittoria had tremblingly taken old Agostino’s hand, and 
had risen to her feet. Still keeping her face hidden, she 
walked down the slope, followed at an interval by her ser- 
vant, and curiously watched by the English officer, who 
said to himself, “Well, I suppose I was mistaken,” and 
consequently discovered that he was in a hobble. 

A short duologue in their best stilted Erench ensued 
between him and Ammiani. It was pitched too high in a 
foreign tongue for Captain Gambier to descend from it, as 
he would fain have done, to ask the lady’s name. They 
exchanged cards and formal salutes, and parted. 

The dignified altercation had been witnessed by the main 
body of the tourists. Captain Gambier told them that he 
had merely interchanged amicable commonplaces with the 
Frenchman, — “or Italian,” he added carelessly, reading 
the card in his hand. “ I thought she might be somebody 
whom we knew,” he said to Mrs. Sedley. 


46 


VITTOEIA 


“Not the shadow of a likeness to her,” the lady returned. 

She had another opinion when later a scrap of paper 
bearing one pencilled line on it was handed round. A 
damsel of the party had picked it up near the spot where, 
as she remarked, “the foreigners had been sitting.” It 
said : — 

“ Let none who look for safety go to Milan.” 


CHAPTER YII 

BARTO RIZZO 

A week following the day of meetings on the Motterone, 
Luigi the spy was in Milan, making his way across the Piazza 
de’ Mercanti. He entered a narrow court, one of those which 
were anciently built upon the Oriental principle of giving 
shade at the small cost of excluding common air. It was 
dusky noon there through the hours of light, and thrice 
night when darkness fell. The atmosphere, during the sun’s 
short passage overhead, hung with a glittering heaviness, 
like the twinkling iron-dust in a subterranean smithy. On 
the lower window of one of the houses there was a board, 
telling men that Barto Rizzo made and mended shoes, and 
requesting people who wished to see him to make much noise 
at the door, for he was hard of hearing. It speedily became 
known in the court that a visitor desired to see Barto Rizzo. 
The noise produced by Luigi was like that of a fanatical 
beater of the tom-tom ; he knocked and banged and danced 
against the door, crying out for his passing amusement an 
adaptation of a popular ballad : — 

“ Oh, Barto, Barto ! my boot is sadly worn : The toe is 
seen that should be veiled from sight. The toe that should 
be veiled like an Eastern maid : Like a sultan’s daughter : 
Shocking ! shocking ! One of a company of ten that were 
living a secluded life in chaste privacy ! Oh, Barto, Barto ! 
must I charge it to thy despicable leather or to my inces- 
sant pilgrimages ? One fair toe ! I fear presently the 
corruption of the remaining nine: Then, alas! what do 
I go on ? How shall I come to a perfumed end, who walk 


BARTO RIZZO 


47 


on ten indecent toes ? Well may the delicate gentlemen 
sneer at me and scorn me : As for the angelic Lady who 
deigns to look so low, I may say of her that her graciousness 
clothes what she looks at : To her the foot, the leg, the back : 
To her the very soul is bared : But she is a rarity upon earth. 
Oh, Barto, Barto, she is rarest in Milan ! I might run a day’s 
length and not find her. If, 0 Barto, as my boot hints to 
me, I am about to be stripped of my last covering, I must 
hurry to the inconvenient little chamber of my mother, who 
cannot refuse to acknowledge me as of this pattern : Barto, 
0 shoemaker ! thou son of artifice and right-hand-man of 
necessity, preserve me in the fashion of the time : Cobble 
me neatly : A dozen wax threads and I am remade : — Excel- 
lent ! I thank you ! Now I can plant my foot bravely : Oh, 
Barto, my shoemaker ! between ourselves, it is unpleasant 
in these refined days to be likened at all to that preposterous 
Adam ! ” 

The omission of the apostrophes to Barto left it one of the 
ironical, veiled Republican, semi-socialistic ballads of the 
time, which were sung about the streets for the sharpness 
and pith of the couplets, and not from a perception of the 
double edge down the length of them. 

As Luigi was coming to the terminating line, the door 
opened. A very handsome sullen young woman, of the dark, 
thick-browed Lombard type, asked what was wanted : at 
the same time the deep voice of a man, conjecturally rising 
from a lower floor, called, and a lock was rattled. The 
woman told Luigi to enter. He sent a glance behind him ; 
he had evidently been drained of his sprightliness in a 
second ; he moved in with the slackness of limb of a gibbeted 
figure. The door shut ; the woman led him downstairs. He 
could not have danced or sung a song now for great pay. 
The smell of mouldiness became so depressing to him that 
the smell of leather struck his nostrils refreshingly. He 
thought : “ Oh, Virgin ! it’s dark enough to make one believe 
in every single thing they tell us about the saints.” Up in 
the light of day Luigi had a turn for careless thinking on 
these holy subjects. 

Barto Rizzo stood before him in a square of cellarage 
that was furnished with implements of his craft, too dark 
for a clear discernment of features. 


48 


VITTORIA 


“ So, here you are ! ” was the greeting Luigi received. 

It was a tremendous voice, that seemed to issue from a 
vast cavity. “ Lead the gentleman to my sitting-room,’ 5 said 
Barto. Luigi felt the wind of a handkerchief, and guessed 
that his eyes were about to be bandaged by the woman behind 
him. He petitioned to be spared it, on the plea, firstly, that 
it expressed want of confidence ; secondly, that it took him 
in the stomach. The handkerchief was tight across his eyes 
while he was speaking. His hand was touched by the woman, 
and he commenced timidly an ascent of stairs. It continued 
so that he would have sworn he was a shorter time going 
up the Motterone ; then down, and along a passage ; lower 
down, deep into corpse-climate ; up again, up another enor- 
mous mountain ; and once more down, as among rats and 
beetles, and down, as among faceless horrors, and down, 
where all things seemed prostrate and with a taste of brass. 
It was the poor fellow’s nervous imagination, preternaturally 
excited. When the handkerchief was caught away, his jaw 
was shuddering, his eyes were sickly ; he looked as if im- 
paled on the prongs of fright. It required just half-a-min- 
ute to reanimate this mercurial creature, when he found 
himself under the light of two lamps, and Barto Rizzo 
fronting him, in a place so like the square of cellarage 
which he had been led to with unbandaged eyes, that it 
relieved his dread by touching his humour. He cried, 
“Have I made the journey of the signor Capofinale, who 
visited the other end of the world by standing on his head ? ” 

Barto Rizzo rolled out a burly laugh. 

“ Sit,” he said. “You’re a poor sweating body, and must 
needs have a dry tongue. Will you drink ? ” 

“ Dry ! ” quoth Luigi. “ Holy San Carlo is a mash in a 
wine-press compared with me.” 

Barto Rizzo handed him a liquor, which he drank, and 
after gave thanks to Providence. Barto raised his hand. 

“ We’re too low down here for that kind of machinery,” 
he said. “They say that Providence is on the side of 
the Austrians. Now then, what have you to communicate 
to me ? This time I let you come to my house : trust at all, 
trust entirely. I think that’s the proverb. You are admitted: 
speak like a guest.” 

Luigi’s preference happened to be for categorical interro- 


BARTO RIZZO 


49 


gations. Never having an idea of spontaneously telling the 
whole truth, the sense that he was undertaking a narrative 
gave him such emotions as a bad swimmer upon deep seas 
may have ; while, on the other hand, his being subjected to 
a series of questions seemed at least to leave him with one 
leg on shore, for then he could lie discreetly, and according v 
to the finger-posts, and only when necessary, and he could 
recover himself if he made a false step. His ingenious mind 
reasoned these images out to his own satisfaction. He re- 
quested, therefore, that his host would let him hear what 
he desired to know. 

Barto Rizzo’s forefinger was pressed from an angle into 
one temple. His head inclined to meet it : so that it was 
like the support to a broad blunt pillar. The cropped head 
was flat as an owl’s ; the chest of immense breadth ; the 
bulgy knees and big hands were those of a dwarf-athlete. 
Strong colour, lying full on him from the neck to the fore- 
head, made the big veins purple and the eyes fierier than 
the movements of his mind would have indicated. He was 
simply studying the character of his man. Luigi feared 
him; he was troubled chiefly because he was unaware of 
what Barto Rizzo wanted to know, and could not conse- 
quently tell what to bring to the market. The simplicity of 
the questions put to him were bewildering : he fell into the 
trap. Barto’s eyes began to get terribly oblique. Jingling 
money in his pocket, he said : — 

“ You saw Colonel Corte on the Motterone : you saw the 
signor Agostino Balderini : good men, both ! Also young 
Count Ammiani : I served his father, the General, and 
jogged the lad on my knee. You saw the signorina Vitto- 
ria. The English people came, and you heard them talk, 
but did not understand. You came home and told all this 
to the signor Antonio, your employer number one. You 
have told the same to me, your employer number two. 
There’s your pay.” 

Barto summed up thus the information he had received, 
and handed Luigi six gold pieces. The latter, springing 
with boyish thankfulness and pride at the easy earning of 
them, threw in a few additional facts, as, that he had been 
taken for a spy by the conspirators, and had heard one of 
the Englishmen mention the signorina Yittoria’s English 


50 


VITTORIA 


name. Barto Rizzo lifted his eyebrows queerly. “ We’ll 
go through another interrogatory in an hour,” he said; 
“ stop here till I return.” 

Luigi was always too full of his own cunning to suspect 
the same in another, until he was left alone to reflect on a 
scene ; when it became overwhelmingly transparent. “ But, 
what could I say more than I did say ? ” he asked himself, 
as he stared at the one lamp Barto had left. Finding the 
door unfastened, he took the lamp and lighted himself out, 
and along a cavernous passage ending in a blank wall, 
against which his heart knocked and fell, for his sensation 
was immediately the terror of imprisonment and helpless- 
ness. Mad with alarm, he tried every spot for an aperture. 
Then he sat down on his haunches ; he remembered hearing 
word of Barto Rizzo’s rack: — certain methods peculiar to 
Barto Rizzo, by which he screwed matters out of his agents, 
and terrified them into fidelity. His personal dealings with 
Barto were of recent date ; but Luigi knew him by repute : 
he knew that the shoemaking business was a mask. Barto 
had been a soldier, a schoolmaster : twice an exile ; a con- 
spirator since the day when the Austrians had the two fine 
Apples of Pomona, Lombardy and Venice, given them as 
fruits of peace. Luigi remembered how he had snapped his 
fingers at the name of Barto Rizzo. There was no despising 
him now. He could only arrive at a peaceful contemplation 
of Barto Rizzo’s character by determining to tell all, and 
(since that seemed little) more than he knew. He got back 
to the leather-smelling chamber, which was either the same 
or purposely rendered exactly similar to the one he had 
first been led to. 

At the end of a leaden hour Barto Rizzo returned. 

“Now, to recommence,” he said. “Drink before you 
speak, if your tongue is dry.” 

Luigi thrust aside the mention of liquor. It seemed to 
him that by doing so he propitiated that ill-conceived divin- 
ity called Virtue, who lived in the open air, and desired 
men to drink water. Barto Rizzo evidently understood the 
kind of man he was schooling to his service. 

“Did that Austrian officer, who is an Englishman ac- 
quainted with the signor Antonio-Pericles, meet the lady, 
his sister, on the Motterone ? ” 


BAKTO KIZZO 


51 


Luigi answered promptly, “ Yes.” 

“ Lid the signorina Yittoria speak to the lady ? ” 

“ No” 

“ Not a word ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Not one communication to her ? ” 

“No : she sat under her straw hat.” 

“ She concealed her face ? ” 

“ She sat like a naughty angry girl.” 

“ Did she speak to the officer ? ” 

“ Not she ! ” 

“ Did she see him ? ” 

“ Of course she did ! As if a woman’s eyes couldn’t see 
through straw-plait ! ” 

Barto paused, calculatingly, eye on victim. 

“ The signorina Yittoria,” he resumed, “ has engaged to 
sing on the night of the Fifteenth ; has she ? ” 

A twitching of Luigi’s muscles showed that he appre- 
hended a necessary straining of his invention on another 
tack. 

“On the night of the Fifteenth, signor Barto Bizzo? 
That’s the night of her first appearance. Oh, yes ! ” 

“ To sing a particular song ? ” 

“ Lots of them ! ay-a'ie ! ” 

Barto took him by the shoulder and pressed him into his 
seat till he howled, saying, “Now, there’s a slate and a 
pencil. Expect me at the end of two hours, this time. 
Next time it will be four: then eight, then sixteen. Find 
out how many hours that will be at the sixteenth examina- 
tion.” 

Luigi flew at the torturer and stuck at the length of his 
straightened arm, where he wriggled, refusing to listen to 
the explanation of Barto’s system : which was that, in cases 
where every fresh examination taught him more, they were 
continued, after regularly -lengthening intervals, that might 
extend from the sowing of seed to the ripening of grain. 
“ When all’s delivered,” said Barto, “ then we begin to cor- 
rect discrepancies. I expect,” he added, “you and I will 
have done before a week’s out.” 

“ A week ! ” Luigi shouted. “ Here’s my stomach already 
leaping like a fish at the smell of this hole. You brute 


52 


VITTORIA 


bear! it’s a smell of bones. It turns my inside with a 
spoon. May the devil seize you when you’re sleeping! 
You shan’t go: I’ll tell you everything — everything. I 
can’t tell you anything more than I have told you. She 
gave me a cigarette — there! Now you know: — gave 
me a cigarette; a cigarette. I smoked it — there! Your 
faithful servant ! ” 

“ She gave you a cigarette, and you smoked it ; ha ! ” said 
Barto Rizzo, who appeared to see something to weigh even 
in that small fact. “ The English lady gave you the cigar- 
ette ? ” 

Luigi nodded : “ Yes ; ” pertinacious in deception. “ Yes,” 
he repeated; “the English lady. That was the person. 
What’s the use of your skewering me with your eyes ! ” 

“I perceive that you have never travelled, my Luigi,” 
said Barto. “ I am afraid we shall not part so early as I 
had supposed. I double the dose, and return to you in four 
hours’ time.” 

Luigi threw himself flat on the ground, shrieking that he 
was ready to tell everything — anything. Not even the ap- 
parent desperation of his circumstances could teach him that 
a promise to tell the truth was a more direct way of speak- 
ing. Indeed, the hitting of the truth would have seemed to 
him a sort of artful archery, the burden of which should 
devolve upon the questioner, whom he supplied with the 
relation of “ everything and anything.” 

All through a night Luigi’s lesson continued. In the 
morning he was still breaking out in small and purposeless 
lies ; but Barto Rizzo had accomplished his two objects : 
that of squeezing him, and that of subjecting his imagina- 
tion. Luigi confessed (owing to a singular recovery of his 
memory) the gift of the cigarette as coming from the 
signor ina Yittoria. What did it matter if she did give him 
a cigarette ? 

“ You adore her for it ? ” said Barto. 

“ May the Virgin sweep the floor of heaven into her lap ! ” 
interjected Luigi. “ She is a good patriot.” 

“ Are you one ? ” Barto asked. 

“ Certainly I am.” 

“ Then I shall have to suspect you, for the good of your 
country.” 


BARTO RIZZO 


53 


Luigi could not see the deduction. He was incapable of 
guessing that it might apply forcibly to Vittoria, who had 
undertaken a grave, perilous, and imminent work. Nothing 
but the spontaneous desire to elude the pursuit of a ques- 
tioner had at first instigated his baffling of Barto Bizzo, 
until, fearing the dark square man himself, he feared him 
dimly for Vittoria’s sake ; he could not have said why. She 
was a good patriot : wherefore the reason for wishing to 
know more of her ? Barto Bizzo had compelled him at last 
to furnish a narrative of the events of that day on the 
Motterone, and, finding himself at sea, Luigi struck out 
boldly and swam as well as he could. Barto disentangled 
one succinct thread of incidents : Vittoria had been commis- 
sioned by the Chief to sing on the night of the Fifteenth ; 
she had subsequently, without speaking to any of the Eng- 
lish party, or revealing her features — “ keeping them beau- 
tifully hidden/’ Luigi said, with unaccountable enthusiasm — 
written a warning to them that they were to avoid Milan. 
The paper on which the warning had been written was found 
by the English when he was the only Italian on the height, 
lying there to observe and note things in the service of 
Barto Bizzo. The writing was English, but when one of the 
English ladies — “ who wore her hair like a planed shred of 
wood ; like a torn vine ; like a kite with two tails ; like Luxury 
at the Banquet, ready to tumble over marble shoulders ” (an 
illustration drawn probably from Luigi’s study of some alle- 
gorical picture, — he was at a loss to describe the foreign 
female head-dress) — when this lady had read the writing, 
she exclaimed that it was the hand of “ her Emilia ! ” and 
soon after she addressed Luigi in English, then in French, 
then in “ barricade Italian” (by which phrase Luigi meant 
that the Italian words were there, but did not present their 
proper smooth footing for his understanding), and strove to 
obtain information from him concerning the signorina, and 
also concerning the chances that Milan would be an agitated 
city. Luigi assured her that Milan was the peacefullest of 
cities — a pure babe. He admitted his acquaintance with the 
signorina Vittoria Campa, and denied her being “ any longer ” 
the Emilia Alessandra Belloni of the English lady. The 
latter had partly retained him in her service, having given 
him directions to call at her hotel in Milan, and help her to 


54 


VITTORIA 


communicate with her old friend. “ I present myself to her 
to-morrow, Friday,” said Luigi. 

“ That’s to-day,” said Barto. 

Luigi clapped his hand to his cheek, crying wofully, 
“ You’ve drawn, beastly gaoler ! a night out of my life like 
an old jaw-tooth.” 

“ There’s day two or three fathoms above us,” said Barto ; 
“ and hot coffee is coming down.” 

“I believe I’ve been stewing in a pot while the moon 
looked so cool.” Luigi groaned, and touched up along the 
sleeves of his arms : that which he fancied he instantaneously 
felt. 

The coffee was brought by the heavy -browed young woman. 
Before she quitted the place Barto desired her to cast her 
eyes on Luigi, and say whether she thought she should know 
him again. She scarcely glanced, and gave answer with a 
shrug of the shoulders as she retired. Luigi at the time 
was drinking. He rose ; he was about to speak, but yawned 
instead. The woman’s carelessly-dropped upper eyelids 
seemed to him to be reading him through a dozen of his 
contortions and disguises, and checked the idea of liberty 
which he associated with getting to the daylight. 

“ But it is worth the money ! ” shouted Barto Bizzo, with 
a splendid divination of his thought. “ You skulker ! are 
you not paid and fattened to do business which you’ve 
only to remember, and it’ll honey your legs in purgatory ? 
You’re the shooting-dog of that Greek, and you nose about 
the bushes for his birds, and who cares if any fellow, just 
for exercise, shoots a dagger a yard from his wrist and 
sticks you in the back ? You serve me, and there’s pay for 
you ; brothers, doctors, nurses, friends, — a tight blanket if 
you fall from a housetop ! and masses for your soul when 
your hour strikes. The treacherous cur lies rotting in a 
ditch ! Do you conceive that when I employ you I am in 
your power? Your intelligence will open gradually. Do 
you know that here in this house I can conceal fifty men, 
and leave the door open to the Croats to find them? I 
tell you now — you are free; go forth. You go alone; no 
one touches you ; ten years hence a skeleton is found with 
an English letter on its ribs ” 

“ Oh, stop ! signor Barto, and be a blessed man,” inter- 


BARTO RIZZO 


55 


posed Luigi, doubling and wriggling in a posture that 
appeared as if be were shaking negatives from the elbows 
of his crossed arms. “ Stop. How did you know of a 
letter? I forgot — I have seen the English lady at her 
hotel. I was carrying the signorina’s answer, when I 
thought 1 Barto Rizzo calls me/ and I came like a lamb. 
And what does it matter ? She is a good patriot ; you are 
a good patriot ; here it is. Consider my reputation, do ; 
and be careful with the wax.” 

Barto drew a long breath. The mention of the English 
letter had been a shot in the dark. The result corroborated 
his devotional belief in the unerringness of his own power- 
ful intuition. He had guessed the case, or hardly even 
guessed it — merely stated it, to horrify Luigi. The letter 
was placed in his hands, and he sat as strongly thrilled by 
emotion, under the mask of his hard face, as a lover hear- 
ing music. “ I read English,” he remarked. 

After he had drawn the seal three or four times slowly 
over the lamp, the green wax bubbled and un snapped. Vic- 
toria had written the following lines in reply to her old 
English friend : — 

“Eorgive me, and do not ask to see me until we have 
passed the fifteenth of the month. You will see me that 
night at La Scala. I wish to embrace you, but I am miser- 
able to think of your being in Milan. I cannot yet tell you 
where my residence is. I have not met your brother. If 
he writes to me it will make me happy, but I refuse to see 
him. I will explain to him why. Let him not try to see 
me. Let him send by this messenger. I hope he will con- 
trive to be out of Milan all this month. Pray let me influ- 
ence you to go for a time. I write coldly ; I am tired, and 
forget my English. I do not forget my friends. I have you 
close against my heart. If it were prudent, and it involved me 
alone, I would come to you without a moment’s loss of time. 
Do know that I am not changed, and am your affectionate 

“ Emilia.” 

When Barto Rizzo had finished reading, he went from the 
chamber and blew his voice into what Luigi supposed to be 
a hollow tube. 


56 


VITTORIA 


“ This letter/’ he said, coming back, “ is a repetition of the 
signorina Yittoria’s warning to her friends on the Motterone. 
The English lady’s brother, who is in the Austrian service, 
was there, you say ? ” 

Luigi considered that, having lately been believed in, he 
could not afford to look untruthful, and replied with a 
sprightly “ Assuredly.” 

“ He was there, and he read the writing on the paper ? ” 

“ Assuredly : right out loud, between puff-puff of his cigar.” 

“His name is Lieutenant Pierson. Did not Antonio- 
Pericles tell you his name ? He will write to her : you 
will be the bearer of his letter to the signorina. I must 
see her reply. She is a good patriot ; so am I ; so are you. 
Good patriots must be prudent. I tell you, I must see her 
reply to this Lieutenant Pierson.” Bar to stuck his thumb 
and finger astride Luigi’s shoulder and began rocking him 
gently, with a horrible meditative expression. “ You will 
have to accomplish this, my Luigi. All fair excuses will 
be made, if you fail generally. This you must do. Keep 
upright while I am speaking to you ! The excuses will be 
made ; but I, not you, must make them : bear that in mind. 
Is there any person whom you, my Luigi, like best in the 
world ? ” 

It was a winning question, and though Luigi was not the 
dupe of its insinuating gentleness, he answered, “ The little 
girl who carries flowers every morning to the caffe La Scala.” 

“ Ah ! the little girl who carries flowers every morning to 
the caffe La Scala. Now, my Luigi, you may fail me, and I 
may pardon you. Listen attentively : if you are false ; if 
you are guilty of one piece of treachery : — do you see ? You 
can’t help slipping, but you can help jumping. Bestrain 
yourself from jumping, that’s all. If you are guilty of 
treachery, hurry at once, straight off, to the little girl who 
carries flowers every morning to the caffe La Scala. Go to 
her, take her by the two cheeks, kiss her, say to her 4 addio, 
addio,’ for, by the thunder of heaven ! you will never see 
her more.” 

Luigi was rocked forward and back, while Barto spoke in 
level tones, till the voice dropped into its vast hollow, when 
Barto held him fast a moment, and hurled him away by the 
simple lifting of his hand. 


THE LETTER 


57 


The woman appeared and bound Luigi’s eyes. Barto did 
not utter another word. On his journey back to daylight, 
Luigi comforted himself by muttering oaths that he would 
never again enter into this trap. As soon as his eyes were 
unbandaged, he laughed, and sang, and tossed a compliment 
from his finger-tips to the savage-browed beauty ; pretended 
that he had got an armful, and that his heart was touched 
by the ecstasy; and sang again: “Oh, Barto, Barto! my 
boot is sadly worn. The toe is seen,” &c., half-way down 
the stanzas. Without his knowing it, and before he had 
quitted the court, he had sunk into songless gloom, brooding 
on the scenes of the night. However free he might be in 
body, his imagination was captive to Barto Rizzo. He was 
no luckier than a bird, for whom the cage is open that it 
may feel the more keenly with its little taste of liberty that 
it is tied by the leg. 


CHAPTER VIII 

THE LETTER 

The importance of the matters extracted from Luigi does 
not lie on the surface ; it will have to be seen through Barto 
Rizzo’s mind. This man regarded himself as the mainspring 
of the conspiracy ; specially its guardian, its wakeful Argus. 
He had conspired sleeplessly for thirty years ; so long, that 
having no ideal reserve in his nature, conspiracy had become 
his professional occupation, — the wheel which it was his 
business to roll. He was above jealousy; he was above 
vanity. ISTo one outstripping him cast a bad colour on 
him ; nor did he object to bow to another as his superior. 
But he was prepared to suspect every one of insincerity 
and of faithlessness ; and, being the master of the machin- 
ery of the plots, he was ready, upon a whispered justifica- 
tion, to despise the orders of his leader, and act by his own 
light in blunt disobedience. For it was his belief that 
while others speculated he knew all. He knew where the 
plots had failed; he knew the man who had bent and 
doubled. In the patriotic cause, perfect arrangements are 


58 


VITTORIA 


crowned with perfect success, unless there is an imperfec- 
tion of the instruments; for the cause is blessed by all 
superior agencies. Such was his governing idea. His 
arrangements had always been perfect ; hence the deduction 
was a denunciation of some one particular person. He 
pointed out the traitor here, the traitor there ; and in one 
or two cases he did so with a mildness that made those 
fret at their beards vaguely who understood his character. 
Barto Rizzo was, it was said, born in a village near Forli, in 
the dominions of the Pope ; according to the rumour, he was 
the child of a veiled woman and a cowled paternity. If not 
an offender against Government, he was at least a wanderer 
early in life. None could accuse him of personal ambition. 
He boasted that he had served as a common soldier with the 
Italian contingent furnished by Eugene to the Moscow cam- 
paign ; he showed scars of old wounds : brown spots, and 
blue spots, and twisted twine of white skin, dotting the 
wrist, the neck, the calf, the ankle, and looking up from 
them, he slapped them proudly. Nor had he personal 
animosities o£ any kind. One sharp scar, which he called 
his shoulder-knot, he owed to the knife of a friend, by name 
Sarpo, who had tilings ready to betray him, and struck him, 
in anticipation of that tremendous moment of surprise and 
wrath when the awakened victim frequently is nerved with 
devil’s strength; but, striking, like a novice, on the bone, 
the stilet stuck there ; and Barto coolly got him to point the 
outlet of escape, and walked off, carrying the blade where 
the terrified assassin had planted it. This Sarpo had become 
a tradesman in Milan — a bookseller and small printer ; and 
he was unmolested. Barto said of him, that he was as bad 
as a few odd persons thought himself to be, and had in him 
the making of a great traitor ; but, that as Sarpo hated him 
and had sought to be rid of him for private reasons only, it 
was a pity to waste on such a fellow steel that should serve 
the Cause. “ While I live,” said Barto, “ my enemies have 
a tolerably active conscience.” 

The absence of personal animosity in him was not due to 
magnanimity. He doubted the patriotism of all booksellers. 
He had been twice betrayed by women. He never attempted 
to be revenged on them ; but he doubted the patriotism of 
all women. “Use them; keep eye on them,” he said. In 


THE LETTER 


59 


Venice he had conspired when he was living there as the 
clerk of a notary ; in Bologna subsequently while earning 
his bread as a petty schoolmaster. His evasions, both of 
Papal sbirri and the Austrian polizia, furnished instances 
of astonishing audacity that made his name a by-word for 
mastery in the hour of peril. His residence in Milan now, 
after seven years of exile in England and Switzerland, was 
an act of pointed defiance, incomprehensible to his own 
party, and only to be explained by the prevalent belief that 
ther authorities feared to provoke a collision with the people 
by laying hands on him. They had only once made a visi- 
tation to his house, and appeared to be satisfied at not find- 
ing him. At that period Austria was simulating benevolence 
in her Lombardic provinces, with the half degree of persua- 
sive earnestness which makes a Government lax in its 
vigilance, and leaves it simply open to the charge of effete- 
ness. There were contradictory rumours as to whether his 
house had ever been visited by the polizia; but it was a 
legible fact that his name was on the window, and it was 
understood that he was not without elusive contrivances in 
the event of the authorities declaring war against him. 

Of the nature of these contrivances Luigi had just learnt 
something. He had heard Barto Bizzo called ‘ The Miner ’ 
and ‘The Great Cat,’ and he now comprehended a little of 
the quality of his employer. He had entered a very different 
service from that of the signor Antonio-Pericles, who paid 
him for nothing more than to keep eye on Vittoria, and 
recount her goings in and out; for what absolute object he 
was unaware, but that it was not for a political one he was 
certain. “Cursed be the day when the lust of gold made 
me open my hand to Barto Bizzo ! ” he thought ; and could 
only reflect that life is short and gold is sweet, and that he 
was in the claws of the Great Cat. He had met Barto in a 
wine-shop. He cursed the habit which led him to call at 
that shop ; the thirst which tempted him to drink : the ear 
which had been seduced to listen. Yet as all his expenses 
had been paid in advance, and his reward at the instant of 
his application for it ; and as the signorina and Barto were 
both good patriots, and he, Luigi, was a good patriot, what 
harm could be done to her? Both she and Barto had 
stamped their different impressions on his waxen nature. 


60 


VITTORIA 


He reconciled his service to them separately by the exclama- 
tion that they were both good patriots. 

The plot for the rising in Milan city was two months old. 
It comprised some of the nobles of the city, and enjoyed the 
good wishes of the greater part of them, whose payment of 
fifty to sixty per cent, to the Government on the revenue of 
their estates was sufficient reason for a desire to change 
masters, positively though they might detest Republicanism, 
and dread the shadow of anarchy. These looked hopefully 
to Charles Albert. Their motive was to rise, or to counte- 
nance a rising, and summon the ambitious Sardinian monarch 
with such assurances of devotion, that a Piedmontese army 
would be at the gates when the banner of Austria was in the 
dust. Among the most active members of the prospectively 
insurgent aristocracy of Milan was Count Medole, a young 
nobleman of vast wealth and possessed of a reliance on his 
powers of mind that induced him to take a prominent part 
in the opening deliberations, and speedily necessitated his 
hire of the friendly offices of one who could supply him with 
facts, with suggestions, with counsel, with fortitude, with 
everything to strengthen his pretensions to the leadership, 
excepting money. He discovered his man in Barto Rizzo, 
who quitted the ranks of the republican section to serve him, 
and wield a tool for his own party. By the help of Agostino 
Balderini, Carlo Ammiani, and others, the aristocratic and 
the republican sections of the conspiracy were brought near 
enough together to permit of a common action between them, 
though the maintaining of such harmony demanded an 
extreme and tireless delicacy of management. The pres- 
ence of the Chief, whom we have seen on the Motterone, 
was claimed by other cities of Italy. Unto him solely did 
Barto Rizzo yield thorough adhesion. He being absent 
from Milan, Barto undertook to represent him and carry 
out his views. How far he was entitled to do so may be 
guessed when it is stated that, on the ground of his general 
contempt for women, he objected to the proposition that 
Vittoria should give the signal. The proposition was 
Agostino’s. Count Medole, Barto, and Agostino discussed 
it secretly : Barto held resolutely against it, until Agostino 
thrust a sly-handed letter into his fingers and let him know 
that previous to any consultation on the subject he had 


THE LETTER 


61 


gained the consent of his Chief. Barto then fell silent. He 
despatched his new spy, Luigi, to the Motterone, more for 
the purpose of giving him a schooling on the expedition, 
and on his return from it, and so getting hand and brain and 
soul service out of him. He expected no such a report of 
Vittoria’s indiscretion as Luigi had spiced with his one 
foolish lie. That she should tell the relatives of an Austrian 
officer that Milan was soon to be a dangerous place for 
them ; — and that she should write it on paper and leave 
it for the officer to read, — left her, according to Barto’s 
reading of her, open to the alternative charges of imbecility 
or of treachery. Her letter to the English lady, the Aus- 
trian officer’s sister, was an exaggeration of the offence, 
but lent it more the look of heedless folly. The point 
was to obtain sight of her letter to the Austrian officer 
himself. Barto was baffled during a course of anxious days 
that led closely up to the fifteenth. She had written no 
letter. Lieutenant Pierson, the officer in question, had 
ridden into the city once from Verona, and had called upon 
Antonio-Pericles to extract her address from him; the 
Greek had denied that she was in Milan. Luigi could tell 
no more. He described the officer’s personal appearance, by 
saying that he was a recognizable Englishman in Austrian 
dragoon uniform ; — white tunic, white helmet, brown mous- 
tache ; — ay ! and eh ! and oh ! and ah ! coming frequently 
from his mouth ; that he stood square while speaking, and 
seemed to like his own smile ; — an extraordinary touch of 
portraiture, or else a scoff at insular self-satisfaction ; at 
any rate, it commended itself to the memory. Barto dis- 
missed him, telling him to be daily in attendance on the 
English lady. 

Barto Rizzo’s respect for the Chief was at war with his 
intense conviction that a blow should be struck at Vittoria 
even upon the narrow information which he possessed. 
Twice betrayed, his dreams and haunting thoughts cried 
“ Shall a woman betray you thrice ? ” In his imagination 
he stood identified with Italy : the betrayal of one meant 
that of both. Falling into a deep reflection, Barto counted 
over his hours of conspiracy : he counted the Chief’s ; com- 
paring the two sets of figures he discovered, that, as he had 
suspected, he was the elder in the patriotic work : therefore, 


62 


VITTORIA 


if he bowed his head to the Chief, it was a voluntary act, a 
form of respect, and not the surrendering of his judgement. 
He was on the spot : the Chief was absent. Barto reasoned 
that the Chief could have had no experience of women, see- 
ing that he was ready to trust in them. “ Do I trust to my 
pigeon, my sling-stone ? ” he said jovially to the thick- 
browed, splendidly ruddy young woman, who was his wife ; 
“ do I trust her ? Not half a morsel of her ! ” This young 
woman, a peasant woman of remarkable personal attractions, 
served him with the fidelity of a fascinated animal, and the 
dumbness of a wooden vessel. She could have hanged him, 
had it pleased her. She had all his secrets : but it was not 
vain speaking on Barto Bizzo’s part ; he was master of her 
will ; and on the occasions when he showed that he did not 
trust her, he was careful at the same time to shock and 
subdue her senses. Her report of Vittoria was, that she 
went to the house of the signora Laura Piaveni, widow of 
the latest heroic son of Milan, and to that of the maestro 
Bocco Bicci ; to no other. It was also Luigi’s report. 

“ She’s true enough,” the woman said, evidently permit- 
ting herself to entertain an opinion ; a sign that she required 
fresh schooling. 

“So are you,” said Barto, and eyed her in a way that 
made her ask, “Now, what’s for me to do ? ” 

He thought awhile. 

“ You will see the colonel. Tell him to come in corporal’s 
uniform. What’s the little wretch twisting her body for ? 
Shan’t I embrace her presently if she’s obedient ? Send to 
the polizia. You believe your husband is in the city, and 
will visit you in disguise at the corporal’s hour. They seize 
him. They also examine the house up to the point where 
we seal it. Your object is to learn whether the Austrians 
are moving men upon Milan. If they are — I learn some- 
thing. When the house has been examined, our court here 
will have rest for a good month ahead ; and it suits me not 
to be disturbed. Do this, and we will have a red-wine 
evening in the house, shut up alone, my snake ! my pepper- 
flower!” 

It happened that Luigi was entering the court to keep an 
appointment with Barto when he saw a handful of the 
polizia burst into the house and drag out a soldier, who was 


THE LETTER 


63 


in the uniform, as he guessed it to be, of the Prohaska 
regiment. The soldier struggled and offered money to them. 
Luigi could not help shouting, “ You fools ! don’t you see 
he’s an officer ? ” Two of them took their captive aside. 
The rest made a search through the house. While they 
were doing so Luigi saw Barto Rizzo’s face at the windows 
of the house opposite. He clamoured at the door, but Barto 
was denied to him there. When the polizia had gone from 
the court, he was admitted and allowed to look into every 
room. Hot finding him, he said, “ Barto Rizzo does not 
keep his appointments, then ! ” The same words were re- 
peated in his ear when he had left the court, and was in the 
street running parallel with it. “ Barto Rizzo does not keep 
his appointments, then ! ” It was Barto who smacked him 
on the back, and spoke out his own name with brown-faced 
laughter in the bustling street. Luigi was so impressed by 
his cunning and his recklessness that he at once, told him 
more than he wished to tell : — The Austrian officer was with 
his sister, and had written to the signorina, and Luigi had 
delivered the letter ; but the signorina was at the maestro’s, 
Rocco Ricci’s, and there was no answer : the officer was 
leaving for Verona in the morning. After telling so much, 
Luigi drew back, feeling that he had given Barto his full 
measure and owed to the signorina what remained. 

Barto probably read nothing of the mind of his spy, but 
understood that it was a moment for distrust of him. Vit- 
toria and her mother lodged at the house of one Zotti, a con- 
fectioner, dwelling between the Duomo and La Scala. Luigi, 
at Barto’s bidding, left word with Zotti that he would call 
for the signorina’s answer to a certain letter about sunrise. 
“ I promised my Rosellina, my poppy -headed sipper, a red- 
wine evening, or I would hold this fellow under my eye till 
the light comes,” thought Barto misgivingly, and let him go. 
Luigi slouched about the English lady’s hotel. At nightfall 
her brother came forth. Luigi directed him to be in the 
square of the Duomo by sunrise, and slipped from his hold ; 
the officer ran after him some distance. “ She can’t say I was 
false to her now,” said Luigi, dancing with nervous ecstasy. 
At sunrise Barto Rizzo was standing under the shadow of 
the Duomo. Luigi passed him and went to Zotti’s house, 
where the letter was placed in his hand, and the door shut 


64 


YITTORIA 


in his face. Barto rushed to him, but Luigi, with a vixenish 
countenance, standing like a humped cat, hissed, “ Would 
you destroy my reputation and have it seen that I deliver up 
letters, under the noses of the writers, to the wrong persons ? 
— ha ! pestilence ! ” He ran, Barto following him. They 
were crossed by the officer on horseback, who challenged 
Luigi to give up the letter, which was very plainly being 
thrust from his hand into his breast. The officer found it 
no difficult matter to catch him and pluck the letter from 
him ; he opened it, reading it on the jog of the saddle as he 
cantered off. Luigi turned in a terror of expostulation 
to ward Barto’s wrath. Barto looked at him hard, while he 
noted the matter down on the tablet of an ivory book. All 
he said was, “ I have that letter ! ” stamping the assertion 
with an oath. Half-an-hour later Luigi saw Barto in the 
saddle, tight-legged about a rusty beast, evidently bound 
for the South-eastern gate, his brows set like a black wind. 
“ Blessings on his going ! ” thought Luigi, and sang one of 
his street-songs : — 

“ 0 lemons, lemons, what a taste you leave in the mouth ! 
I desire you, I love you, but when I suck you, Pm all caught 
up in a bundle and turn to water, like a wry-faced fountain. 
Why not be satisfied by a sniff at the blossoms ? There’s 
gratification. Why did you grow up from the precious 
little sweet chuck that you were, Marietta? Lemons, 0 
lemons ! such a thing as a decent appetite is not known after 
sucking at you.” 

His natural horror of a resolute man, more than fear (of 
which he had no recollection in the sunny Piazza), made 
him shiver and gave his tongue an acid taste at the prospect 
of ever meeting Barto Rizzo again. There was the prospect 
also that he might never meet him again. 


IN VERONA 


65 


CHAPTER IX 

IN VERONA 

The lieutenant read these lines, as he clattered through 
the quiet streets toward the Porta Tosa : — 

“ Dear Friend, — I am glad that you remind me of our 
old affection, for it assures me that yours is not dead. I can- 
not consent to see you yet. I would rather that we should 
not meet. 

“ I thought I would sign my name here, and say, ‘ God 
bless you, Wilfrid ; go ! 1 

“ Oh ! why have you done this thing ! I must write on. 
It seems like my past life laughing at me, that my old friend 
should have come here in Italy, to wear the detestable uni- 
form. How can we be friends when we must act as enemies ? 
We shall soon be in arms, one against the other. I pity you, 
for you have chosen a falling side ; and when you are beaten 
back, you can have no pride in your country, as we Italians 
have ; no delight, no love. They will call you a mercenary 
soldier. I remember that I used to have the fear of your 
joining our enemies, when we were in England, but it seemed 
too much for my reason. 

“ You are with a band of butchers. If I could see you 
and tell you the story of Giacomo Piaveni, and some other 
things, I believe you would break your sword instantly. 

“ There is time. Come to Milan on the fifteenth. You 
will see me then. I appear at La Scala. Promise me, if you 
hear me, that you will do exactly what I make you feel it 
right to do. Ah, you will not, though thousands will ! But 
step aside to me, when the curtain falls, and remain — oh, 
dear friend ! I write in honour to you ; we have sworn to 
free the city and the country — remain among us : break 
your sword, tear off your uniform; we are so strong that 
we are irresistible. I know what a hero you can be on the 
field : then, why not in the true cause ? I do not under- 
stand that you should waste your bravery under that ugly 
flag, bloody and past forgiveness. 

“ I shall be glad to have news of you all, and of England. 


66 


VITTORIA 


The bearer of this is a trusty messenger, and will continue 
to call at the hotel. A. is offended that I do not allow 
my messenger to give my address ; but I must not only be 
hidden, I must have peace, and forget you all until I have 
done my task. Addio. We have both changed names. I am 
the same. Can I think that you are ? Addio, dear friend. 

“ Vittoria.” 

Lieutenant Pierson read again and again the letter of her 
whom he had loved in England, to get new lights from it, 
as lovers do when they have lost the power to take single 
impressions. He was the bearer of a verbal despatch from 
the commandant in Milan to the Marshal in Verona. At 
that period great favour was shown to Englishmen in the 
Austrian service, and the lieutenant’s uncle being a General 
of distinction, he had a sort of semi-attachment to the Mar- 
shal’s staff, and was hurried to and fro, for the purpose of 
keeping him out of duelling scrapes, as many of his friend- 
lier comrades surmised. The right to the distinction of ex- 
ercising staff-duties is, of course, only to be gained by stout 
competitorship in the Austrian service ; but favour may do 
something for a young man even in that rigorous school of 
Arms. He had to turn to Brescia on his way, and calculated 
that if luck should put good horses under him, he would enter 
Verona gates about sunset. Meantime, there was Vittoria’s 
letter to occupy him as he went. 

We will leave him to his bronzing ride through the mul- 
berries and the grapes, and the white and yellow and arid 
hues of the September plain, and make acquaintance with 
some of his comrades of that proud army which Vittoria 
thought would stand feebly against the pouring tide of 
Italian patriotism. 

The fairest of the cities of the plain had long been a nest 
of foreign soldiery. The life of its beauty was not more 
visible then than now. Within the walls there are glimpses 
of it, that belong rather to the haunting spirit than to the 
life. Military science has made a mailed giant of Verona, 
and a silent one, save upon occasion. Its face grins of war, 
like a skeleton of death ; the salient image of the skull and 
congregating worms was one that Italian lyrists applied 
naturally to Verona. 


IN VERONA 


67 


The old Field-Marshal and chief commander of the Aus- 
trian forces in Lombardy, prompted by the counsels of his 
sagacious adlatus, the chief of the staff, was engaged at 
that period in adding some of those ugly round walls and 
flanking bastions to Verona, upon which, when Austria was 
thrown back by the first outburst of the insurrection and 
the advance of the Piedmontese, she was enabled to plant a 
sturdy hind-foot, daring her foes as from a rock of defence. 

A group of officers, of the cavalry, with a few infantry 
uniforms skirting them, were sitting in the pleasant cooling 
evening air, fanned by the fresh springing breeze, outside 
one of the Piazza Bra caffes, close upon the shadow of the 
great Verona amphitheatre. They were smoking their 
attenuated long straw cigars, sipping iced lemonade or 
coffee, and talking the common talk of garrison officers, 
with perhaps that additional savour of a robust immorality 
which a Viennese social education may give. The rounded 
ball of the brilliant September moon hung still aloft, light- 
ing a fathomless sky as well as the fair earth. It threw 
solid blackness from the old savage walls almost to a junc- 
tion with their indolent outstretched feet. Itinerant street 
music twittered along the Piazza; officers walked arm-in- 
arm ; now in moonlight bright as day, now in a shadow 
black as night: distant figures twinkled with the alterna- 
tion. The light lay like a blade’s sharp edge around the 
massive circle. Of Italians of a superior rank, Verona sent 
none to this resort. Even the melon-seller stopped beneath 
the arch ending the Stradone Porta Nuova, as if he had 
reached a marked limit of his popular customers. 

This isolation of the rulers of Lombardy had commenced 
in Milan, but, owing to particular causes, was not positively 
defined there as it was in Verona. War was already raging 
between the Veronese ladies and the officers of Austria. 
According to the Gallic Terpsichorean code, a lady who 
permits herself to make election of her partners and to 
reject applicants to the honour of her hand in the dance, 
when that hand is disengaged, has no just ground of com- 
plaint if a glove should smite her cheek. The Austrians 
had to endure this sort of rejection in Ball-rooms. On the 
promenade their features were forgotten. They bowed to 
statues. Now, the officers of Austria who do not belong to 


68 


VITTORIA 


a Croat regiment, or to one drawn from any point of the 
extreme East of the empire, are commonly gentlemanly 
men ; and though they can be vindictive after much irrita- 
tion, they may claim at least as good a reputation for for- 
bearance in a conquered country as our officers in India. 
They are not ill-humoured, and they are not peevishly arro- 
gant, except upon provocation. The conduct of the tender 
Italian dames was vexatious. It was exasperating to these 
knights of the slumbering sword to hear their native waltzes 
sounding of exquisite Vienna, while their legs stretched in 
melancholy inactivity on the Piazza pavement, and their 
arms encircled no ductile waists. They tried to despise it 
more than they disliked it, called their female foes Amazons, 
and their male by a less complimentary title, and so waited 
for the patriotic epidemic to pass. 

A certain Captain Weisspriess, of the regiment named 
after a sagacious monarch whose crown was the sole flour- 
ishing blossom of diplomacy, particularly distinguished him- 
self by insisting that a lady should remember him in public 
places. He was famous for skill with his weapons. He 
waltzed admirably ; erect as under his Field-Marshal’s eye. 
In the language of his brother officers, he was successful ; 
that is, even as God Mars when Bellona does not rage. Cap- 
tain Weisspriess (Johann Nepomuk, Freiherr von Scheppen- 
hausen) resembled in appearance one in the Imperial Royal 
service, a gambling General of Division, for whom Fame 
had not yet blown her blast. Rumour declared that they 
might be relatives ; a little-scrupulous society did not hesi- 
tate to mention how. The captain’s moustache was straw- 
coloured; he wore it beyond the regulation length and 
caressed it infinitely. Surmounted by a pair of hot eyes, 
wavering in their direction, this grand moustache was a 
feature to be forgotten with difficulty, and Weisspriess was 
doubtless correct in asserting that his face had endured a 
slight equal to a buffet. He stood high and square-shoul- 
dered ; the flame of the moustache streamed on either side 
his face in a splendid curve ; his vigilant head was loftily 
posted to detect what he chose to construe as insult, or gather 
the smiles of approbation, to which, owing to the unerring 
judgement of the sex, he was more accustomed. Handsome 
or not, he enjoyed the privileges of masculine beauty. 


IN VERONA 


69 


This captain of a renown to come pretended that a 
superb Venetian lady of the Branciani family was bound 
to make response in public to his private signals, and 
publicly to reply to his salutations. He refused to be as 
a particle in space floating airily before her invincible 
aspect. Meeting her one evening, ere sweet Italy had ex- 
iled herself from the Piazza, he bowed, and stepping to the 
front of her, bowed pointedly. She crossed her arms and 
gazed over him. He called up a thing to her recollection 
in resonant speech. Shameful lie, or shameful truth, it was 
uttered in the hearing of many of his brother officers, of 
three Italian ladies, and of an Italian gentleman, Count 
Broncini, attending them. The lady listened calmly. Count 
Broncini smote him on the face. That evening the lady’s 
brother arrived from Venice, and claimed his right to defend 
her. Captain Weisspriess ran him through the body, and 
attached a sinister label to his corpse. This he did not so 
much from brutality ; the man felt that henceforth while he 
held his life he was at war with every Italian gentleman of 
mettle. Count Broncini was his next victim. There, for a 
time, the slaughtering business of the captain stopped. His 
brother officers of the better kind would not have excused 
him at another season, but the avenger of their irritation 
and fine vindicator of the merits of Austrian steel had a 
welcome truly warm, when at the termination of his second 
duel he strode into mess, or what serves for an Austrian 
regimental mess. 

It ensued naturally that there was everywhere in Verona 
a sharp division between the Italians of all classes and their 
conquerors. The great green-rinded melons were never 
wheeled into the neighbourhood of the whitecoats. Dam- 
sels were no longer coquettish under the military glance, 
but hurried by in couples ; and there was much scowling, 
mixed with derisive servility, throughout the city, hard to 
be endured without that hostile state of the spirit which is 
the military mind’s refuge in such cases. Itinerant musi- 
cians, and none but this fry, continued to be attentive to 
the dispensers of soldi. 

The Austrian army prides itself upon being a brother- 
hood. Discipline is very strict, but all commissioned offi- 
cers, when off duty, are as free in their intercourse as big 


TO 


YITTORIA 


boys. The General accepts a cigar from the lieutenant, 
and in return lifts his glass to him. The General takes an 
interest in his lieutenant’s love-affairs : nor is the latter shy 
when he feels it his duty modestly to compliment his supe- 
rior officer upon a recent conquest. There is really good 
fellowship both among the officers and in the ranks, and it 
is systematically encouraged. 

The army of Austria was in those days the' Austrian 
Empire. Outside the army the empire was a jealous con- 
gery of intriguing disaffected nationalities. The same policy 
which played the various States against one another in order 
to reduce all to subserviency to the central Head, erected a 
privileged force wherein the sentiment of union was fostered 
till it became a nationality of the sword. Nothing more 
fatal can be done for a country ; but for an army it is a 
simple measure of wisdom. Where the password is march, 
and not develop, a body of men, to be a serviceable instru- 
ment, must consent to act as one. Hannibal is the historic 
example of what a General can accomplish with tribes who 
are thus enrolled in a new citizenship ; and (as far as we 
know of him and his fortunes) he appears to be an example 
of the necessity of the fusing fire of action to congregated 
aliens in arms. When Austria was fighting year after year, 
and being worsted in campaign after campaign, she lost foot 
by foot, but she held together soundly ; and more than the 
baptism, the atmosphere of strife has always been required 
to give her a healthy vitality as a centralized empire. She 
knew it ; this (apart from the famous promptitude of the 
Hapsburgs) was one secret of her dauntless readiness to 
fight. War did the work of a smithy for the iron and steel 
holding her together; and but that war costs money, she 
would have been an empire distinguished by aggressiveness. 
The next best medicinal thing to war is the military occupa- 
tion of insurgent provinces. The soldiery soon feel where 
their home is, and feel the pride of atomies in unitive power, 
when they are sneered at, hooted, pelted, stabbed upon a 
gross misinterpretation of the slightness of moral offences, 
shamefully abused for doing their duty with a considerate 
sense of it, and too accurately divided from the inhabitants 
of the land they hold. In Italy, the German, the Czech, the 
Magyar, the Croat, even in general instances the Italian, 


IN VERONA 


71 


clung to the standard for safety, for pay, for glory, and all 
became pre-eminently Austrian soldiers ; little besides. 

It was against a power thus bound in iron hoops, that 
Italy, dismembered, and jealous, and corrupt, with an 
organization promoted by passion chiefly, was preparing to 
rise. In the end, a country true to itself and determined to 
claim God’s gift to brave men will overmatch a mere army, 
however solid its force. But an inspired energy of faith is 
demanded of it. The intervening chapters will show pitiable 
weakness, and such a schooling of disaster as makes men, 
looking on the surface of things, deem the struggle folly. 
As well, they might say, let yonder scuffling vagabonds up 
any of the Veronese side-streets fall upon the patrol march- 
ing like one man, and hope to overcome them ! In Vienna 
there was often despair : but it never existed in the Austrian 
camp. Vienna was frequently double-dealing and time- 
serving : her force in arms was like a trained man feeling 
his muscle. Thus, when the Government thought of tem- 
porizing, they issued orders to Generals whose one idea was 
to strike the blow of a mallet. 

At this period there was no suspicion of any grand revolt 
being in process of development. The abounding dissatis- 
faction was treated as nothing more than the Italian disease 
showing symptoms here and there, and Vienna counselled 
measures mildly repressive ; — ‘ conciliating,’ it was her 
pleasure to call them. Her recent commands with respect 
to turbulent Venice were the subject of criticism among the 
circle outside the Piazza caffe. An enforced inactivity of 
the military legs will quicken the military wits, it would 
appear, for some of the younger officers spoke hotly as to 
their notion of the method of ruling Venezia. One had 
bidden his Herr General to “ look here,” while he stretched 
forth his hand and declared that Italians were like women, 
and wanted — yes, wanted — (their instinct called for it) a 
beating, a real beating; as the emphatic would say in our 
vernacular, a thundering thrashing, once a month : — “ Or 
so,” the General added acquiescingly. A thundering thrash- 
ing, once a month or so, to these unruly Italians, because 
they are like women ! It was a youth who spoke, but none 
doubted his acquaintance with women, or cared to suggest 
that his education in that department of knowledge was an 


72 


VITTORI A 


insufficient guarantee for his fitness to govern Venezia. Two 
young dragoon officers had approached during the fervid 
allocution, and after the salute to their superior, caught up 
chairs and stamped them down, thereupon calling for the 
loan of anybody’s cigar-case. Where it is that an Austrian 
officer ordinarily keeps this instrument so necessary to his 
comfort, and obnoxious, one would suppose, to the rigid cor- 
rectness of his shapely costume, we cannot easily guess. 
None can tell even where he stows away his pocket-hand- 
kerchief, or haply his purse. However, these things appear 
on demand. Several elongated cigar-cases were thrust for- 
ward, and then it was seen that the attire of the gallant 
youngsters was in disorder. 

“ Did you hunt her to earth ? ” they were asked. 

The reply trenched on philosophy ; and consisted in an 
inquiry as to who cared for the whole basketful — of the 
like description of damsels, being implied. Immoderate and 
uproarious laughter burst around them. Both seemed to have 
been clawed impartially. Their tight-fitting coats bulged 
at the breast or opened at the waist, as though buttons were 
lacking, and the whiteness of that garment cried aloud for 
the purification of pipeclay. Questions flew. The damsel 
who had been pursued was known as a pretty girl, the 
daughter of a blacksmith, and no prolonged resistance was 
expected from one of her class. But, as it came out, she had 
said, a week past, “ I shall be stabbed if I am seen talking to 
you ; ” and therefore the odd matter was, not that she had, 
in tripping down the Piazza with her rogue-eyed cousin from 
Milan, looked away and declined all invitation to moderate 
her pace and to converse, but that, after doubling down and 
about lonely streets, the length of which she ran as swiftly 
as her feet would carry her, at a corner of the Via Colomba 
she allowed herself to be caught — wilfully, beyond a doubt, 
seeing that she was not a bit breathed — allowed one quick 
taste of her lips, and then shrieked as naturally as a netted 
bird, and brought a hustling crowd just at that particular 
point to her rescue : not less than fifty, and all men. “Not 
a woman among them ! ” the excited young officer repeated. 

A veteran in similar affairs could see that he had the wish 
to remain undisturbed in his bewilderment at the damsel’s 
conduct. Profound belief in her partiality for him perplexed 


IN VERONA 


lo 


his recent experience rather agreeably. Indeed, it was at 
this epoch an article of faith with the Austrian military 
that nothing save terror of their males kept sweet Italian 
women from the expression of their preference for the 
broad-shouldered, thick-limbed, yellow-haired warriors — 
the contrast to themselves which is supposed greatly to 
inspirit genial Cupid in the selection from his quiver. 

“ What became of her ? Did you let her go ? ” came 
pestering remarks, too absurd for replies if they had not 
been so persistent. 

“ Let her go ? In the devil’s name, how was I to keep my 
hold of her in a crowd of fifty of the fellows, all mowing, 
and hustling, and elbowing — every rascal stinking right 
under my nose like the pit ? ” 

“ ’Hem ! ” went the General present. “ As long as you 
did not draw ! Unsheathe, a minute.” 

He motioned for a sight of their naked swords. 

The couple of young officers flushed. 

“ Herr General ! Pardon ! ” they remonstrated. 

“No, no. I know how boys talk ; I’ve been one myself. 
Tutt ! You tell the truth, of course ; but the business is for 
me to know in what ! how far ! Your swords, gentlemen.” 

“ But, General ! ” 

“ Well ? I merely wish to examine the blades.” 

“ Do you doubt our words ? ” 

“ Hark at them ! Words ? Are you lawyers ? A soldier 
deals in acts. I don’t want to know your words, but your 
deeds, my gallant lads. I want to look at the blades of your 
swords, my children. What was the last order ? That on 
no account were we to provoke, or, if possibly to be avoided, 
accept a collision, &c., &c. The soldier in peace is a citizen, 
&c. No sword on any account, or for any excuse, to be drawn, 
&c. You all heard it? So, good! I receive your denial, 
my children. In addition, I merely desire to satisfy curi- 
osity. Did the guard clear a way for you ? ” 

The answer was affirmative. 

“ Your swords ! ” 

One of them drew, and proffered the handle. 

The other clasped the haft angrily, and with a resolute 
smack on it, settled it in the scabbard. 

“ Am I a prisoner, General ? ” 


74 


VITTOKIA 


“Not at all ! ” 

“ Then I decline to surrender my sword.” 

Another General officer happened to be sauntering by. 
Applauding with his hands, and choosing the Italian lan- 
guage as the best form of speech for the enunciation of 
ironical superlatives, he said : — 

“ Eccellentemente ! most admirable ! of a distinguished 
loftiness of moral grandeur: ‘Then I decline/ &c. : you are 
aware that you are quoting? ‘as the drummer-hoy said to 
Napoleon .’ I think you forgot to add that ? It is the same 
young soldier who utters these immense things, which we 
can hardly get out of our mouths. So the little fellow 
towers ! His moral greatness is as noisy as his drum. 
What’s wrong ? ” 

“ General Pierson, nothing’s wrong,” was replied by several 
voices ; and some explained that Lieutenant J enna had been 
called upon by General Schoneck to show his sword, and 
had refused. 

The heroic defender of his sword shouted to the officer 
with whom General Pierson had been conversing : “ Here ! 
Weisspriess ! ” 

“ What is it, my dear fellow ? Speak, my good Jenna ! ” 

The explanation was given, and full sympathy elicited 
from Captain Weisspriess, while the two Generals likewise 
whispered and nodded. 

“ Did you draw ? ” the captain inquired, yawning. “ You 
needn’t say it in quite so many words, if you did. I shall 
be asked by the General presently ; and owing to that duel 
pending ’twixt you and his nephew, of which he is aware, 
he may put a bad interpretation on your pepperiness.” 

“ The devil fetch his nephew ! ” returned the furious 
Lieutenant Jenna. “He comes back to-night from Milan, 
and if he doesn’t fight me to-morrow, I post him a coward. 
Well, about that business ! My good Weisspriess, the fellows 
had got into a thick crowd all round, and had begun to 
knead me. Do you understand me ? I felt their knuckles.” 

“ Ah, good, good ! ” said the captain. “ Then, you didn’t 
draw, of course. What officer of the Imperial service 
would, under similar circumstances ! That is my reply to 
the Emperor, if ever I am questioned. To draw would be 
to show that an Austrian officer relies on his good sword in 


IN VERONA 


75 


the thick of his enemies ; — against which, as you know, my 
Jenna, the Government have issued an express injunction. 
I see you have lost a button. Did you sell it dear ? ” 

“ A fellow parted with his ear for it.” 

Lieutenant J enna illustrated a particular cut from a turn 
of his wrist. 

“ That oughtn’t to make a noise ? ” he queried somewhat 
anxiously. 

“ It won’t hear one any longer, at all events,” said Captain 
Weisspriess ; and the two officers entered into the significance 
of the remark with enjoyment. 

Meantime General Pierson had concluded an apparently 
humorous dialogue with his brother General, and the latter, 
now addressing Lieutenant Jenna, said: “Since you prefer 
surrendering your person rather than your sword — it is 
good ! Keport yourself at the door of my room to-night, at 
ten. I suspect that you have been blazing your steel, sir. 
They say, ’tis as ready to flash out as your temper.” 

Several voices interposed : “ General ! what if he did 

draw ! ” 

“ Silence. You have read the recent order. Orlando may 
have his Durindarda bare ; but you may not. Grasp that 
fact. The Government wish to make Christians of you, my 
children. One cheek being smitten, what should you do ? ” 

“ Shall I show you, General ? ” cried a quick little 
subaltern. 

“ The order, my children, as received a fortnight since 
from our old Wien, commands you to offer the other cheek 
to the smiter.” 

“So that a proper balance may be restored to both sides 
of the face,” General Pierson appended. 

“And mark me,” he resumed. “There may be doubts 
about the policy of anything, though I shouldn’t counsel you 
to cherish them: but there’s no mortal doubt about the 
punishment for this thing.” The General spoke sternly; 
and then relaxing the severity of his tone, he said, “ The 
desire of the Government is to make an army of Christians.” 

“And a precious way of doing it!” interjected two or 
three of the younger officers. They perfectly understood 
how hateful the Viennese domination was to their chiefs, 
and that they would meet sympathy and tolerance for any 


76 


YITTORIA 


extreme of irony, provided that they showed a disposition 
to be subordinate. For the bureaucratic order, whatever it 
was, had to be obeyed. The army might, and of course did, 
know best : nevertheless it was bound to be nothing better 
than a machine in the hands of the dull closeted men in 
Vienna, who judged of difficulties and plans of action from 
a calculation of numbers, or from foreign journals — from 
heaven knows what ! 

General Schoneck and General Pierson walked away 
laughing, and the younger officers were left to themselves. 
Half-a-dozen of them interlaced arms, striding up toward 
the Porta Nuova, near which, at the corner of the Via 
Trinita, they had the pleasant excitement of beholding a 
riderless horse suddenly in mid gallop sink on its knees and 
roll over. A crowd came pouring after ‘it, and from the 
midst the voice of a comrade hailed them. “ It’s Pierson,” 
cried Lieutenant Jenna. The officers drew their swords, 
and hailed the guard from the gates. Lieutenant Pierson 
dropped in among their shoulders, dead from want of 
breath. They held him up, and finding him sound, thumped 
his back. The blade of his sword was red. He coughed 
with their thumpings, and sang out to them to cease ; the 
idle mob which had been at his heels drew back before 
the guard could come up with them. Lieutenant Pierson 
gave no explanation except that he had been attacked 
near Juliet’s tomb on his way to General Schoneck’s 
quarters. Fellows had stabbed his horse, and brought 
him to the ground, and torn the coat off his back. He com- 
plained in bitter mutterings of the loss of a letter therein, 
during the first candid moments of his anger : and, as he 
was known to be engaged to the Countess Lena von Lenken- 
stein, it was conjectured by his comrades that this lady 
might have had something to do with the ravishment of the 
letter. Great laughter surrounded him, and he looked from 
man to man. Allowance is naturally made for the irasci- 
bility of a brother officer coming tattered out of the hands of 
enemies, or Lieutenant Jenna would have construed his eye’s 
challenge on the spot. As it was, he cried out, “ The letter ! 
the letter ! Charge, for the honour of the army, and rescue 
the letter ! ” Others echoed him : “ The letter ! the let- 
ter ! the English letter ! ” A foreigner in an army can have 


IN VERONA 


77 


as much provocation as he pleases ; if he is anything of a 
favourite with his superiors, his fellows will task his for- 
bearance. Wilfrid Pierson glanced at the blade of his 
sword, and slowly sheathed it. “ Lieutenant Jenna is a good 
actor before a mob,” he said. “ Gentlemen, I rely upon you 
to make no noise about that letter ; it is a private matter. 
In an hour or so, if any officer shall choose to question me 
concerning it, I will answer him.” 

The last remnants of the mob had withdrawn. The 
officer in command at the gates threw a cloak over Wil- 
frid’s shoulders; and taking the arm of a friend Wilfrid 
hurried to barracks, and was quickly in a position to report 
himself to his General, whose first remark, “ Has the dead 
horse been removed?” robbed him of his usual readiness to 
equivocate. “ When you are the bearer of a verbal despatch, 
come straight to quarters, if you have to come like a fig-tree 
on the north side of the wall in Winter,” said General 
Schoneck, who was joined presently by General Pierson. 

“ What’s this I hear of some letter you have been barking 
about all over the city?” the latter asked, after returning 
his nephew’s on-duty salute. 

Wilfrid replied that it was a letter of his sister’s treating 
of family matters. 

The two Generals, who were close friends, discussed the 
attack to which he had been subjected. Wilfrid had to 
recount it with circumstance : how, as he was nearing Gen- 
eral Schoneck’ s quarters at a military trot, six men headed 
by a leader had dashed out on him from a narrow side -street, 
unhorsed him after a struggle, rifled the saddle-bags, and 
torn the coat from his back, and had taken the mark of his 
sword, while a gathering crowd looked on, hooting. His 
horse had fled, and he confessed that he had followed 
his horse. General Schoneck spoke the name of Countess 
Lena suggestively . “ Hot a bit, ” returned General Pierson ; 

“ the fellow courts her too hotly. The scoundrels here want 
a bombardment; that’s where it lies. A dose of iron pills 
will make Verona a healthy place. She must have it.” 

General Schoneck said, “I hope not,” and laughed at the 
heat of Irish blood. He led Wilfrid in to the Marshal, 
after which Wilfrid was free to seek Lieutenant Jenna, who 
had gained the right to a similar freedom by pledging his 


78 


VITTORIA 


honour not to fight within a stipulated term of days. The 
next morning Wilfrid was roused by an orderly coming 
from his uncle, who placed in his hands a copy of Vittoria’ s 
letter: at the end of it his uncle had written, “ Rather 
astonishing. Done pretty well; but by a foreigner. ‘Affec- 
tion ’ spelt with one ‘f.’ An Italian: you will see the 
letters are emphatic at ‘ugly flag ; ’ also ‘bloody and past 
forgiveness ’ very large ; the copyist had a dash of the feel- 
ings of a commentator, and did his (or her) best to add an 
oath to it. Who the deuce, sir, is this opera girl calling 
herself Vittoria? I have a lecture for you. German women 
don’t forgive diversions during courtship; and if you let 
this Countess Lena slip, your chance has gone. I compli- 
ment you on your power of lying ; but you must learn to 
show your right face to me, or the very handsome feature, 
your nose, and that useful box, your skull, will come to 
grief. The whole business is a mystery. The letter (copy) 
was directed to you, brought to me, and opened in a fit of 
abstraction, necessary to commanding uncles who are trying 
to push the fortunes of young noodles pretending to be 
related to them. Go to Countess Lena. Count Paul is 
with her, from Bologna. Speak to her, and observe her and 
him. He knows English — has been attached to the embassy 
in London; but, pooh! the hand’s Italian. I confess myself 
puzzled. We shall possibly have to act on the intimation 
of the fifteenth, and profess to be wiser than others. Some- 
thing is brewing for business. See Countess Lena boldly, 
and then come and breakfast with me.” 

Wilfrid read the miserable copy of Vittoria’ s letter, 
utterly unable to resolve anything in his mind, except that 
he would know among a thousand the leader of those men 
who had attacked him, and who bore the mark of his sword. 


THE POPE’S MOUTH 


79 


CHAPTER X 

THE pope’s MOUTH 

Barto Rizzo had done what he had sworn to do. He 
had not found it difficult to outstrip the lieutenant (who 
had to visit Brescia on his way) and reach the gates of 
Verona in advance of him, where he obtained entrance 
among a body of grape -gatherers and others descending 
from the hills to meet a press of labour in the autumnal 
plains. With them he hoped to issue forth unchallenged 
on the following morning; but Wilfrid’s sword had made 
lusty play; and, as in the case when the order has been 
given that a man shall be spared in life and limb, Barto 
and his fellow-assailants suffered by their effort to hold 
him simply half-a-minute powerless. He received a shrewd 
cut across the head, and lay for a couple of hours senseless 
in the wine-shop of one Battista — one of the many all over 
Lombardy who had pledged their allegiance to the Great 
Cat, thinking him scarcely vulnerable. He read the letter, 
dizzy with pain, and with the frankness proper to inflated 
spirits after loss of blood, he owned to himself that it was 
not worth much as a prize. It was worth the attempt to 
get possession of it, for anything is worth what it costs, if 
it be only as a schooling in resolution, energy, and devoted- 
ness: — regrets are the sole admission of a fruitless busi- 
ness; they show the bad tree; — so, according to his 
principle of action, he deliberated; but he was compelled 
to admit that Vittoria’s letter was little else than a repe- 
tition of her want of discretion when she was on the 
Motterone. He admitted it, wrathfully: his efforts to con- 
vict this woman telling him she deserved some punishment; 
and his suspicions being unsatisfied, he resolved to keep 
them hungry upon her, and return to Milan at once. As 
to the letter itself, he purposed, since the harm in it was 
accomplished, to send it back honourably to the lieuten- 
ant, till finding it blood-stained, he declined to furnish the 
gratification of such a sight to any Austrian sword. For 
that reason, he copied it, while Battista’s wife held double 


80 


VITTORIA 


bandages tight round his head: believing that the letter 
stood transcribed in a precisely similar hand, he forwarded 
it to Lieutenant Pierson, and then sank and swooned. Two 
days he lay incapable and let his thoughts dance as they 
would. Information was brought to him that the gates 
were strictly watched, and that troops were starting for 
Milan. This was in the dull hour antecedent to the dawn. 
“ She is a traitress ! ” he exclaimed, and leaping from his 
bed, as with a brain striking fire, screamed, “Traitress! 
traitress!” Battista and his wife had to fling themselves 
on him and gag him, guessing him as mad. He spoke 
pompously and theatrically; called himself the Eye of 
Italy, and said that he must be in Milan, or Milan would 
perish, because of the traitress : all with a great sullen air 
of composure and an odd distension of the eyelids. When 
they released him, he smiled and thanked them, though 
they knew, that had he chosen, he could have thrown off a 
dozen of them, such was his strength. The woman went 
down on her knees to him to get his consent that she should 
dress and bandage his head afresh. The sound of the 
regimental bugles drew him from the house, rather than 
any immediate settled scheme to watch at the gates. 

Artillery and infantry were in motion before sunrise, 
from various points of the city, bearing toward the Palio 
and Zeno gates, and the people turned out to see them, for 
it was a march that looked like the beginning of things. 
The soldiers had green twigs in their hats, and kissed their 
hands good-humouredly to the gazing crowd, shouting bits 
of verses : — 

“Pm off! I’m off! Farewell, Mariandl! if I come back 
a sergeant-major or a Field-Marshal, don’t turn up your 
nose at me: Swear you will be faithful all the while; 
because, when a woman swears, it’s a comfort, somehow: 
Farewell! Squeeze the cow’s udders: I shall be thirsty 
enough: You pretty wriggler! don’t you know, the first 
cup of wine and the last, I shall float your name on it? 
Luck to the lads we leave behind! Farewell, Mariandl! ” 

The kindly fellows waved their hands and would take no 
rebuff. The soldiery of Austria are kindlier than most, 
until their blood is up. A Tyrolese regiment passed, sing- 
ing splendidly in chorus. Songs of sentiment prevailed, 


THE POPE’S MOUTH 


81 


but the traditions of a soldier’s experience of the sex have 
informed his ballads with strange touches of irony, that 
help him to his (so to say) philosophy, which is reckless- 
ness. The Tyroler’s ‘Katchen ’ here, was a saturnine 
Giulia, who gave him no response, either of eye or lip. 

“Little mother, little sister, little sweetheart, ade! ade! 
My little sweetheart, your meadow is half-way up the 
mountain; it’s such a green spot on the eyeballs of a rov- 
ing boy ! and the chapel just above it, I shall see it as I’ve 
seen it a thousand times; and the cloud hangs near it, and 
moves to the door and enters, for it is an angel, not a cloud ; 
a white angel gone in to pray for Katerlein and me : Little 
mother, little sister, little sweetheart, ade! ad6! Keep 
single, Katerlein, as long as you can: as long as you can 
hold out, keep single : ade ! ” 

Fifteen hundred men and six guns were counted as they 
marched on to one gate. 

Barto Rizzo, with Battista and his wife on each side of 
him, were among the spectators. The black cock’s feathers 
of the Tyrolese were still fluttering up the Corso, when the 
woman said, “ I’ve known the tail of a regiment get through 
the gates without having to show paper.” 

Battista thereupon asked Barto whether he would try 
that chance. The answer was a vacuous shake of the head, 
accompanied by an expression of unutterable mournfulness. 
“There’s no other way,” pursued Battista, “unless you 
jump into the Adige, and swim down half-a-mile under 
water; and cats hate water — eh, my comico?” 

He conceived that the sword-cut had rendered Barto 
imbecile, and pulled his hat down his forehead, and patted 
his shoulder, and bade him have cheer, patronizingly : but 
women do not so lightly lose their impression of a notable 
man. His wife checked him. Barto had shut his eyes, 
and hung swaying between them, as in drowsiness or 
drunkenness. Like his body, his faith was swaying within 
him. He felt it borne upon the reeling brain, and clung to 
it desperately, calling upon chance to aid him ; for he was 
weak, incapable of a physical or mental contest, and this 
part of his settled creed — that human beings alone failed 
the patriotic cause as instruments, while circumstances 
constantly befriended it — was shocked by present events. 


82 


VITTORIA 


The image of Vittoria, the traitress, floated over the sol- 
diery marching on Milan through her treachery. Never 
had an Austrian force seemed to him so terrible. He had 
to yield the internal fight, and let his faith sink and be 
blackened, in order that his mind might rest supine, accord- 
ing to his remembered system; for the inspiration which 
points to the right course does not come during mental 
strife, but after it, when faith summons its agencies undis- 
turbed — if only men will have the faith, and will teach 
themselves to know that the inspiration must come, and 
will counsel them justly. This was a part of Barto Rizzo’s 
sustaining creed; nor did he lose his grasp of it in the tor- 
ment and the darkness of his condition. 

He heard English voices. A carriage had stopped almost 
in front of him. A General officer was hat in hand, talk- 
ing to a lady, who called him uncle, and said that she had 
been obliged to decide to quit Yerona on account of her 
husband, to whom the excessive heat was unendurable. 
Her husband, in the same breath, protested that the heat 
killed him. He adorned the statement with all kinds of 
domestic and subterranean imagery, and laughed faintly, 
saying that after the fifteenth — on which night his wife 
insisted upon going to the Opera at Milan to hear a new 
singer and old friend — he should try a week at the Baths 
of Bormio, and only drop from the mountains when a proper 
temperature reigned, he being something of an invalid. 

“And, uncle, will you be in Milan on the fifteenth?” 
said the lady; “and Wilfrid, too?” 

“ Wilfrid will reach Milan as soon as you do, and I shall 
undoubtedly be there on the fifteenth,” said the General. 

“ I cannot possibly express to you how beautiful I think 
your army looks, ” said the lady. 

“Fine men, General Pierson, very fine men. I never 
saw such marching — equal to our Guards,” her husband 
remarked. 

The lady named her Milanese hotel as the General waved 
his plumes, nodded, and rode off. 

Before the carriage had started, Barto Rizzo dashed up 
to it; and “Dear good English lady,” he addressed her, “I 
am the brother of Luigi, who carries letters for you in 
Milan — little Luigi! — and I have a mother dying in 


THE POPE’S MOUTH 


83 


Milan ; and here I am in Verona, ill, and can’t get to her, 
poor soul! Will yon allow me that I may sit up behind as 
quiet as a mouse, and be near one of the lovely English 
ladies who are so kind to unfortunate persons, and never 
deaf to the name of charity? It’s my mother who is dying, 
poor soul ! ” 

The lady consulted her husband’s face, which presented 
the total blank of one who refused to be responsible for an 
opinion hostile to the claims of charity, while it was impos- 
sible for him to fall in with foreign habits of familiarity, 
and accede to extraordinary petitions. Barto sprang up. 
“ I shall be your courier, dear lady,” he said, and com- 
menced his professional career in her service by shouting 
to the vetturino to drive on. Wilfrid met them as he was 
trotting down from the Porta del Palio, and to him his sis- 
ter confided her new trouble in having a strange man 
attached to her, who might be anything. “We don’t 
know the man,” said her husband; and Adela pleaded for 
him: “Don’t speak to him harshly, pray, Wilfrid; he says 
he has a mother dying in Milan.” Barto kept his head 
down on his arms and groaned; Adela gave a doleful little 
grimace. “Oh, take the poor beggar,” said Wilfrid; and 
sang out to him in Italian : “ Who are you — what are you, 
my fine fellow?” Barto groaned louder, and replied in 
Swiss-French from a smothering depth : “ A poor man, and 
the gracious lady’s servant till we reach Milan.” 

“I can’t wait,” said Wilfrid; “I start in half-an-hour. 
It’s all right; you must take him now you’ve got him, or 
else pitch him out — one of the two. If things go on quietly 
we shall have the Autumn manoeuvres in a week, and then 
you may see something of the army.” He rode away. 
Barto passed the gates as one of the licenced English 
family. 

Milan was more strictly guarded than when he had quitted 
it. He had anticipated that it would be so, and tamed his 
spirit to submit to the slow stages of the carriage, spent a 
fiery night in Brescia, and entered the city of action on the 
noon of the fourteenth. Safe within the walls, he thanked 
the English lady, assuring her that her charitable deed 
would be remembered aloft. He then turned his steps in 
the direction of the Revolutionary post-office. This place 


84 


VITTORIA 


was nothing other than a blank abutment of a corner house 
that had long been undergoing repair, and had a great bank 
of brick and mortar rubbish at its base. A stationary 
melon-seller and some black fig and vegetable stalls occu- 
pied the triangular space fronting it. The removal of a 
square piece of cement showed a recess, where, chiefly 
during the night, letters and proclamation papers were 
deposited, for the accredited postman to disperse them. 
Hither, as one would go to a caffe for the news, Barto 
Rizzo came in the broad glare of noon, and flinging him- 
self down like a tired man under the strip of shade, worked 
with a hand behind him, and drew out several folded scraps, 
of which one was addressed to him by his initials. He 
opened it and read : — 

“ Your house is watched. 

“ A corporal of the P . . . . ka regiment was seen leav- 
ing it this morning in time for the second bugle. 

“ Reply : — where to meet. 

“ Spies are doubled, troops coming. 

“The numbers in Verona; — who heads them. 

“ Look to your wife. 

“Letters are called for every third hour.” 

Barto sneered indolently at this fresh evidence of the 
small amount of intelligence which he could ever learn from 
others. He threw his eyes all round the vacant space while 
pencilling in reply : — 

“V. waits for M., but in a box” (that is, Verona for 
Milan). “We take the key to her. 

“ I have no wife, but a little pupil. 

“A Lieutenant Pierson, of the dragoons, Czech; — white 
coats, helmets without plumes ; an Englishman, nephew of 
General Pierson : speaks crippled Italian ; returns from V. 
to-day. Keep eye on him; — what house, what hour.” 

Meditating awhile, Barto wrote out Vittoria’s name and 
enclosed it in a thick black ring. 

Beneath it he wrote : — 

“ The same on all the play -bills. 

“ The Fifteenth is cancelled. 

“We meet the day after. 

“ At the house of Count M. to-night.” 

He secreted this missive, and wrote Vittoria’s name on 


THE POPE’S MOUTH 


85 


numbers of slips to divers addresses, heading them, “From 
the Pope’s Mouth,” such being the title of the Revolution- 
ary post-office, to whatsoever spot it might in prudence 
shift. The title was entirely complimentary to his Holi- 
ness. Tangible freedom, as well as airy blessings, were at 
that time anticipated, and not without warrant, from the 
mouth of the successor of St. Peter. From the Pope’s 
Mouth the clear voice of Italian liberty was to issue. This 
sentiment of the period was a natural and a joyful one, and 
endowed the popular ebullition with a sense of unity and a 
stamp of righteousness that the abstract idea of liberty 
could not assure to it before martyrdom. After suffering, 
after walking in the shades of death and despair, men of 
worth and of valour cease to take high personages as repre- 
sentative objects of worship,' even when these (as the good 
Pope was then doing) benevolently bless the nation and bid 
it to have great hope, with a voice of authority. But, for 
an extended popular movement a great name is like a con- 
secrated banner. Proclamations from the Pope’s Mouth 
exacted reverence, and Barto Rizzo, who despised the Pope 
(because he was Pope, doubtless), did not hesitate to make 
use of him by virtue of his office. 

Barto lay against the heap of rubbish, waiting for the 
approach of his trained lad, Checco, a lanky simpleton, cun- 
ning as a pure idiot, who was doing postman’s duty, when 
a kick, delivered by that youth behind, sent him bounding 
round with rage, like a fish in air. The market-place 
resounded with a clapping of hands ; for it was here that 
Checco came daily to eat figs, and it was known that the 
‘povero, ’ the dear half-witted creature, would not tolerate 
an intruder in the place where he stretched his limbs to 
peel and suck in the gummy morsels twice or thrice a day. 
Barto seized and shook him. Checco knocked off his hat; 
the bandage about the wound broke and dropped, and Barto 
put his hand to his forehead, murmuring: “ What’s come 
to me that I lose my temper with a boy — an animal?” 

The excitement all over the triangular space was hushed 
by an imperious guttural shout that scattered the groups. 
Two Austrian officers, followed by military servants, rode 
side by side. Dust had whitened their mustachios, and the 
heat had laid a brown-red varnish on their faces. Way 


86 


VITTORIA 


was made for them, while Barto stood smoothing his fore- 
head and staring at Checco. 

“ I see the very man ! ” cried one of the officers quickly. 
“ Weisspriess, there’s the rascal who headed the attack on 
me in Verona the other day. It’s the same! ” 

“ Himmel ! ” returned his companion, scrutinizing the 
sword-cut, “if that’s your work on his head, you did it 
right well, my Pierson ! He is very neatly scored indeed. 
A clean stroke, manifestly! ” 

“But here when I left Milan! at Verona when I entered 
the North-west gate there; and the first man I see as I 
come back is this very brute. He dogs me everywhere! 
By the way, there may be two of them.” 

Lieutenant Pierson leaned over his horse’s neck, and 
looked narrowly at the man Barto Rizzo. He himself was 
eyed as in retort, and with yet greater intentness. At first 
Barto’s hand was sweeping the air within a finger’s length 
of his forehead, like one who fought a giddiness for steady 
sight. The mist upon his brain dispersing under the gaze 
of his enemy, his eyeballs fixed, and he became a curious 
picture of passive malice, his eyes seeming to say: “It is 
enough for me to know your features, and I know them.” 
Such a look from a civilian is exasperating: it was scarcely 
to be endured from an Italian of the plebs. 

“You appear to me to want more,” said the lieutenant 
audibly to himself ; and he repeated words to the same effect 
to his companion, in bad German. 

“Eh? You would promote him to another epaulette?” 
laughed Captain Weisspriess. “Come off. Orders are 
direct against it. And we’re in Milan — not like being 
in Verona! And my good fellow ! remember your bet; the 
dozen of iced Riidesheimer. I want to drink my share, 
and dream I’m quartered in Mainz — the only place for an 
Austrian when he quits Vienna. Come.” 

“No; but if this is the villain who attacked me, and tore 
my coat from my back,” cried Wilfrid, screwing in his saddle. 

“And took your letter — took your letter; a particular 
letter; we 'have heard of it,” said Weisspriess. 

The lieutenant exclaimed that he should overhaul and 
examine the man, and see whether he thought fit to give 
him into custody. Weisspriess laid hand on his bridle. 


THE POPE’S MOUTH 


87 


“ Take my advice, and don’t provoke a disturbance in the 
streets. The truth is, you Englishmen and Irishmen get 
us a bad name among these natives. If this is the man who 
unhorsed you and maltreated you, and committed the rape 
of the letter, I’m afraid you won’t get satisfaction out of 
him, to judge by his look. I’m really afraid not. Try it 
if you like. In any case, if you halt, I am compelled to 
quit your society, which is sometimes infinitely diverting. 
Let me remind you that you bear despatches. The other 
day they were verbal ones; you are now carrying paper.” 

“Are you anxious to teach me my duty, Captain Weiss- 
priess? ” 

“If you don’t know it. I said I would ‘remind you.’ I 
can also teach you, if you need it.” 

“ And I can pay you for the instruction, whenever you 
are disposed to receive payment.” 

“Settle your outstanding claims, my good Pierson! ” 

“When I have fought Jenna?” 

“ Oh ! you’re a Prussian — a Prussian ! ” Captain Weiss- 
priess laughed. “A Prussian, I mean, in your gross way 
of blurting out everything. I’ve marched and messed with 
Prussians — with oxen.” 

“I am, as you are aware, an Englishman, Captain Weiss- 
priess. I am due to Lieutenant Jenna for the present. 
After that you or anyone may command me.” 

“As you please,” said Weisspriess, drawing out one 
stream of his moustache. “In the meantime, thank me 
for luring you away from the chances of a street row.” 

Barto Rizzo was left behind, and they rode on to the 
Duomo. Glancing up at its pinnacles, Weisspriess said: 
“How splendidly Elatschmann’s jagers would pick them 
off from there, now, if the dogs were giving trouble in this 
part of the city ! ” 

They entered upon a professional discussion of the ways 
and means of dealing with a revolutionary movement in the 
streets of a city like Milan, and passed on to the Piazza La 
Scala. Weisspriess stopped before the Play-bills. “To- 
morrow’s the fifteenth of the month,” he said. “Shall I 
tell you a secret, Pierson? I am to have a private peep at 
the new prima donna this night. They say she’s charming, 
and very pert. ‘I do not interchange letters with Ger- 


88 


YITTORIA 


mans/ Benlomik sent her a neat little note to the conser-' 
vatorio — he hadn’t seen her: only heard of her, and that 
was our patriotic reply! She wants taming. I believe I 
am called upon for that duty. At least, my friend Antonio- 
Pericles, who occasionally assists me with supplies, hints 
as much to me. You’re an engaged man, or, upon my 
honour, I wouldn’t trust you; but between ourselves, this 
Greek — and he’s quite right — is trying to get her away 
from the set of snuffy vagabonds who are prompting her for 
mischief, and don’t know how to treat her.” 

While he was speaking Barto Rizzo pushed roughly 
between them, and with a black brush painted the circle 
about Yittoria’s name. 

“Do you see that?” said Weisspriess. 

“I see,” Wilfrid retorted, “that you are ready to meddle 
with the reputation of any woman who is likely to be talked 
about. Don’t do it in my presence.” 

It was natural for Captain Weisspriess to express aston- 
ishment at this outburst, and the accompanying quiver of 
Wilfrid’s lip. 

“Austrian military etiquette, Lieutenant Pierson,” he 
said, “precludes the suspicion that the officers of the 
Imperial army are subject to dissension in public. We 
conduct these affairs upon a different principle. But I’ll 
tell you what. That fellow’s behaviour may be construed 
as a more than common stretch of incivility. I’ll do you 
a service. I’ll arrest him, and then you can hear tidings 
of your precious letter. We’ll have his confession pub- 
lished.” 

Weisspriess drew his sword, and commanded the troopers 
in attendance to lay hands on Barto ; but the troopers called, 
and the officer found that they were surrounded. Weiss- 
priess shrugged dismally, ‘ : The brute must go, I suppose,” 
he said. The situation was one of those which were every 
now and then occurring in the Lombard towns and cities, 
when a chance provocation created a riot that became a revolt 
or not, according to the timidity of the ruling powers or the 
readiness of the disaffected. The extent and evident regu- 
lation of the crowd operated as a warning to the Imperial 
officers. Weisspriess sheathed his sword and shouted, 
“Way, there! ” Way was made for him; but Wilfrid lin- 


THE POPE’S MOUTH 


89 


gered to scrutinize the man who, for an unaccountable 
reason, appeared to be his peculiar enemy. Barto care- 
lessly threaded the crowd, and Wilfrid, finding it useless 
to get out after him, cried, “Who is he? Tell me the 
name of that man?” The question drew a great burst of 
laughter around him, and exclamations of “Englishman! 
Englishman ! ” He turned where there was a clear way 
left for him in the track of his brother officer. 

Comments on the petty disturbance had been all the 
while passing at the caffe La Scala, where sat Agostino 
Balderini, with Count Medole and others, who, if the order 
for their arrest had been issued, were as safe in that place 
as in their own homes. Their policy, indeed, was to show 
themselves openly abroad. Agostino was enjoying the 
smoke of paper cigarettes, with all prudent regard for the 
well-being of an inflammable beard. Perceiving Wilfrid 
going by, he said, “ An Englishman ! I continue to hope 
much from his countrymen. I have no right to do so, only 
they insist on it. They have promised, and more than 
once, to sail a fleet to our assistance across the plains of 
Lombardy, and I believe they will — probably in the watery 
epoch which is to follow Metternich. Behold my Carlo 
approaching. The heart of that lad doth so boil the brain 
of him, he can scarcely keep the lid on. What is it now? 
Speak, my son.” 

Carlo Ammiani had to communicate that he had just seen 
a black circle to Vittoria’s name on two public play-bills. 
His endeavour to ape a deliberate gravity while he told the 
tale, roused Agostino’s humouristic ire. 

“Round her name?” said Agostino. 

“Yes; in every bill.” 

“ Meaning that she is suspected ! ” 

“Meaning any damnable thing you like.” 

“It’s a device of the enemy.” 

Agostino, glad of the pretext to recur to his habitual 
luxurious irony, threw himself back, repeating “It’s a 
device of the enemy. Calculate, my son, that the enemy 
invariably knows all you intend to do: determine simply 
to astonish him with what you do. Intentions have lungs, 
Carlo, and depend on the circumambient air, which, if not 
designedly treacherous, is communicative. Deeds, I need 


90 


VITTORIA 


not remark, are a different body. It has for many genera- 
tions been our Italian error to imagine a positive blood 
relationship — not to say maternity itself — existing be- 
tween intentions and deeds. Nothing of the sort! There 
is only the intention of a link to unite them. You per- 
ceive? It's much to be famous for fine intentions, so we 
won’t complain. Indeed, it’s not our business to complain, 
but Posterity’s; for fine intentions are really rich posses- 
sions, but they don’t leave grand legacies ; that is all. They 
mean to possess the future : they are only the voluptuous 
sons of the present. It’s my belief, Carlino, from observa- 
tion, apprehension, and other gifts of my senses, that our 
paternal government is not unacquainted with our inten- 
tion to sing a song in a certain opera. And it may have 
learnt our clumsy method of enclosing names publicly, at 
the bidding of a non-appointed prosecutor, so to isolate or 
extinguish them. Who can say? Oh, ay! Yes! the ma- 
chinery that can so easily be made rickety is to blame; we 
admit that; but if you will have a conspiracy like a Geneva 
watch, you must expect any slight interference with the 
laws that govern it to upset the mechanism altogether. 
Ah — a! look yonder, but not hastily, my Carlo. Checco 
is nearing us, and he knows that he has fellows after him. 
And if I guess right, he has a burden to deliver to one of us.” 

Checco came along at his usual pace, and it was quite 
evident that he fancied himself under espionage. On two 
sides of the square a suspicious figure threaded its way in 
the line of shade not far behind him. Checco passed the 
caffe looking at nothing but the huge hands he rubbed over 
and over. The manifest agents of the polizia were nearing 
when Checco ran back, and began mouthing as in retort at 
something that had been spoken from the caffe as he shot 
by. He made a gabbling appeal on either side, and ad- 
dressed the pair of apparent mouchards, in what, if intel- 
ligible, should have been the language of earnest entreaty. 
At the first word which the caffe was guilty of uttering, a 
fit of exasperation seized him, and the excitable creature 
plucked at his hat and sent it whirling across the open-air 
tables right through the doorway. Then, with a whine, he 
begged his followers to get his hat back for him. They 
complied. 


THE POPE’S MOUTH 


91 


“We only called ‘Illustrissimo! ’ ” said Agostino, as one 
of the men returned from the interior of the caffe hat in 
hand. 

“The Signori should have known better — it is an idiot,” 
the man replied. He was a novice : in daring to rebuke he 
betrayed his office. 

Checco snatched his hat from his attentive friend grin- 
ning, and was away in a flash. Thereupon the caffe laughed, 
and laughed with an abashing vehemence that disconcerted 
the spies. They wavered in their choice of following 
Checco or not; one went a step forward, one pulled back; 
the loiterer hurried to rejoin his comrade, who was now 
for a retrograde movement, and standing together they 
swayed like two imperfectly jolly fellows, or ballet ban- 
dits, each plucking at the other, until at last the madden- 
ing laughter made them break, reciprocate cat-like hisses of 
abuse, and escape as they best could — lamentable figures. 

“ It says well for Milan that the Tedeschi can scrape up 
nothing better from the gutters than rascals the like of 
those for their service,” quoth Agostino. “Eh, signor 
Conte?” 

“That enclosure about La Yittoria’s name on the bills is 
correct,” said the person addressed, in a low tone. He 
turned and indicated one who followed from the interior of 
the caffe. 

“If Barto is to be trusted she is not safe,” the latter 
remarked. He produced a paper that had been secreted in 
Checco’s hat. Under the date and the superscription of 
the Pope’s Mouth, “La Yittoria” stood out in the omi- 
nous heavily-pencilled ring: the initials of Barto Rizzo 
were in a corner. Agostino began smoothing his beard. 

“He has discovered that she is not trustworthy,” said 
Count Medole, a young man of a premature gravity and 
partial baldness, who spoke habitually with a forefinger 
pressed flat on his long pointed chin. 

“Do you mean to tell me, Count Medole, that you attach 
importance to a communication of this sort?” said Carlo, 
forcing an amazement to conceal his anger. 

“I do, Count Ammiani,” returned the patrician con- 
spirator. 

“You really listen to a man you despise?” 


92 


VITTORIA 


“I do not despise him, my friend.” 

“ You cannot surely tell us that you allow such a man, 
on his sole authority, to blacken the character of the 
signorina? ” 

“ I believe that he has not.” 

“Believe? trust him? Then we are all in his hands. 
What can you mean? Come to the signorina herself 
instantly. Agostino, you now conduct Count Medole to 
her, and save him from the shame of subscribing to the 
monstrous calumny. I beg you to go with our Agostino, 
Count Medole. It is time for you — I honour you for the 
part you have taken ; but it is time to act according to your 
own better judgement.” 

Count Medole bowed. 

“ The filthy rat ! ” cried Ammiani, panting to let out his 
wrath. 

“A serviceable dog,” Agostino remarked correctingly. 
“Keep true to the form of animal, Carlo. He has done 
good service in his time.” 

“ You listen to the man?” Carlo said, now thoroughly 
amazed. 

“An indiscretion is possible to woman, my lad. She 
may have been indiscreet in some way. I am compelled to 
admit the existence of possibilities.” 

“Of all men, you, Agostino! You call her daughter, and 
profess to love her.” 

“You forget,” said Agostino sharply. “The question 
concerns the country, not the girl.” He added in an 
underbreath, “ I think you are professing that you love her 
a little too strongly, and scarce give her much help as an 
advocate. The matter must be looked into. If Barto shall 
be found to have acted without just grounds, I am certain 
that Count Medole ” — he turned suavely to the nobleman 
— ■ “ will withdraw confidence from him; and that will be 
equivalent to a rope’s-end for Barto. We shall see him 
to-night at your house?” 

“He will be there,” Medole said. 

“But the harm’s done; the mischief’s done! And what’s 
to follow if you shall choose to consider this vile idiot 
justified?” asked Ammiani. 

“She sings, and there is no rising,” said Medole. 


THE POPE’S MOUTH 


93 


“She is detached from the patriotic battery, for the 
moment: it will be better for her not to sing at all,” said 
'Agostino. “In fact, Barto has merely given us warning 
that — and things look like it — the Fifteenth is likely to 
be an Austrian feast-day. Your arm, my son. We will 
join you to-night, my dear Count. Now, Carlo, I was 
observing, it appears to me that the Austrians are not 
going to be surprised by us, and it affords me exquisite 
comfort. Fellows prepared are never more than prepared 
for one day and another day; and they are sure to be in a 
state of lax preparation after a first and second disappoint- 
ment. On the contrary, fellows surprised ” — Agostino had 
recovered his old smile again — “ fellows surprised may be 
expected to make use of the inspirations pertaining to 
genius. Don’t you see?” 

“Oh, cruel! I am sick of you all!” Carlo exclaimed. 
“ Look at her ; think of her, with her pure dream of Italy 
and her noble devotion. And you permit a doubt to be 
cast on her ! ” 

“Now, is it not true that you have an idea of the coun- 
try not being worthy of her?” said Agostino, slyly. “The 
Chief, I fancy, did not take certain facts into his calcula- 
tion when he pleaded that the conspiratrix was the sum and 
completion of the conspirator. You will come to Medole’s 
to-night, Carlo. You need not be too sweet to him, but 
beware of explosiveness. I, a Republican, am nevertheless 
a practical exponent of the sacrifices necessary to unity. I 
accept the local leadership of Medole — on whom I can 
never look without thinking of an unfeathered pie ; and I 
submit to be assisted by the man Barto Rizzo. Do thou 
likewise, my son. Let your enamoured sensations follow 
that duty, and with a breezy space between. A conspiracy 
is an epitome of humanity, with a boiling power beneath 
it. You’re no more than a bit of mechanism — happy if it 
goes at all ! ” 

Agostino said that he would pay a visit to Vittoria in the 
evening. Ammiani had determined to hunt out Barto Rizzo 
and the heads of the Clubs before he saw her. It was a 
relief to him to behold in the Piazza the Englishman who 
had exchanged cards with him on the Motterone. Captain 
Gambier advanced upon a ceremonious bow, saying frankly, 


94 


YITTORIA 


in a more colloquial French than he had employed at their 
first interview, that he had to apologize for his conduct, 
and to request monsieur’s excuse. “If,” he pursued, “that 
lady is the person whom I knew formerly in England as 
Mademoiselle Belloni, and is now known as Mademoiselle 
Yittoria Campa, may I beg you to inform her that, accord- 
ing to what I have heard, she is likely to be in some danger 
to-morrow?” What the exact nature of the danger was, 
Captain Gambier could not say. 

Ammiani replied : “ She is in need of all her friends,” and 
took the pressure of the Englishman’s hand, who would fain 
have asked more but for the stately courtesy of the Italian’s 
withdrawing salute. Ammiani could no longer doubt that 
Vittoria’s implication in the conspiracy was known. 


CHAPTEE XI 

LAURA PIAVENI 

After dark on the same day antecedent to the out- 
break, Yittoria, with her faithful Beppo at her heels, left 
her mother to run and pass one comforting hour in the 
society of the signora Laura Piaveni and her children. 

There were two daughters of a parasitical Italian noble- 
man, of whom one had married the patriot Giacomo Piaveni, 
and one an Austrian diplomatist, the Commendatore Graf 
von Lenkenstein. Count Serabiglione was traditionally para- 
sitical. His ancestors all had moved in Courts. The chil- 
dren of the House had illustrious sponsors. The House 
itself was a symbolical sunflower constantly turning toward 
Eoyalty. Great excuses are to be made for this, the last 
male descendant, whose father in his youth had been an 
Imperial page, and who had been nursed in the conception 
that Italy (or at least Lombardy) was a natural fief of 
Austria, allied by instinct and by interest to the holders 
of the Alps. Count Serabiglione mixed little with his 
countrymen, — the statement might be inversed, — but 
when, perchance, he was among them, he talked will- 


LAURA PIAYENI 


95 


ingly of the Tedeschi, and voluntarily declared them to be 
gross, obstinate, offensive — bears, in short. At such times 
he would intimate in any cordial ear that the serpent was 
probably a match for the bear in a game of skill, and that 
the wisdom of the serpent was shown in his selection of the 
bear as his master, since, by the ordination of circumstances, 
master he must have. The count would speak pityingly of 
the poor depraved intellects which admitted the possibility 
of a coming Kingdom of Italy united: the lunatics who 
preached of it he considered a sort of self-elected targets 
for appointed files of Tyrolese jagers. But he was vindictive 
against him whom he called the professional doctrinaire, and 
he had vile names for the man. Acknowledging that Italy 
mourned her present woes, he charged this man with the 
crime of originating them : — and why ? what was his object ? 
He was, the count declared in answer, a born intriguer, a 
lover of blood, mad for the smell of it ! — an Old Man of 
the Mountain ; a sheaf of assassins ; and more — the curse 
of Italy ! There should be extradition treaties all over the 
world to bring this arch-conspirator to justice. The door of 
his conscience had been knocked at by a thousand bleeding 
ghosts, and nothing had opened to them. What was Italy 
in his eyes ? A chess-board ; and Italians were the chess- 
men to this cold player with live flesh. England nourished 
the wretch, that she might undermine the peace of the 
Continent. 

Count Serabiglione would work himself up in the climax 
of denunciation, and then look abroad frankly as one whose 
spirit had been relieved. He hated bad men ; and it was 
besides necessary for him to denounce somebody, and get 
relief of some kind. Italians edged away from him. He 
was beginning to feel that he had no country. The de- 
tested title ‘ Young Italy ’ hurried him into fits of wrath. 
“I am,” he said, “ one of the Old Italians, if a distinction is 
to be made.” He assured his listeners that he was for his 
commune, his district, and aired his Old-Italian prejudices 
delightedly; clapping his hands to the quarrels of Milan 
and Brescia; Florence and Siena — haply the feuds of vil- 
lages — and the common North-Italian jealousy of the chief 
city. He had numerous capital tales to tell of village feuds, 
their date and origin, the stupid effort to heal them, and 


96 


VITT0R1A 


the wider consequent split ; saying, “ We have, all Italians, 
the tenacity, the unforgiveness, the fervent blood of pure 
Hebrews ; and a little more gaiety, perhaps ; together with 
a love of fair things. We can outlive ten races of con- 
querors.” 

In this fashion he philosophized, or forced a kind of 
philosophy. But he had married his daughter to an Aus- 
trian, which was what his countrymen could not overlook, 
and they made him feel it. Little by little, half acquiescing, 
half protesting, and gradually denationalized, the count was 
edged out of Italian society, save of the parasitical class, 
which he very much despised. He was not a happy man. 
Success at the Imperial Court might have comforted him ; 
but a remorseless sensitiveness of his nature tripped his 
steps. Bitter laughter rang throughout Lombardy when, in 
spite of his efforts to save his daughter’s husband, Giacomo 
Piaveni suffered death. No harder blow had ever befallen 
the count : it was as good as a public proclamation that he 
possessed small influence. To have bent the knee was not 
afflicting to this nobleman’s conscience: but it was an 
anguish to think of having bent the knee for nothing. 

Giacomo Piaveni was a noble Italian of the young blood, 
son of a General loved by Eugene. In him the loss of Italy 
was deplorable. He perished by treachery at the age of 
twenty-three years. So splendid was this youth in appear- 
ance, of so sweet a manner with women, and altogether so 
gentle and gallant, that it was a widowhood for women to 
have known him : and at his death the hearts of two women 
who had loved him in rivalry became bound by a sacred tie 
of friendship. He, though not of distinguished birth, had 
the choice of an almost royal alliance in the first blush of 
his manhood. He refused his chance, pleading in excuse 
to Count Serabiglione, that he was in love with that noble- 
man’s daughter, Laura ; which it flattered the count to hear, 
but he had ever after a contempt for the young man’s dis- 
cretion, and was observed to shrug, with the smooth sorrow- 
fulness of one who has been a prophet, on the day when 
Giacomo was shot. The larger estates of the Piaveni family, 
then in Giacomo’s hands, were in a famous cheese-making 
district, producing a delicious cheese: — “ white as lamb- 
kins!” the count would ejaculate most dolefully; and in a 


LAURA PIAVENI 


97 


rapture of admiration, “You would say, a marble quarry 
when you cut into it.” The theme was afflicting, for all 
the estates of Giacomo were for the time forfeit, and the 
pleasant agitation produced among his senses by the men- 
tion of the cheese reminded him at the same instant that 
he had to support a widow with two children. The signora 
Piaveni lived in Milan, and the count her father visited her 
twice during the summer months, and wrote to her from his 
fitful Winter residences in various capital cities, to report 
progress in the settled scheme for the recovery of Giacomo’s 
property, as well for his widow as for the heirs of his body. 

It is a duty,” Count Serabiglione said emphatically. “My 
daughter can entertain no proposal until her children are 
duly established ; or would she, who is young and lovely and 
archly capricious, continue to decline the very best offers of 
the Milanese nobility, and live on one flat in an old quarter 
of the city, instead of in a bright and handsome street, musi- 
cal with equipages, and full of the shows of life ? ” 

In conjunction with certain friends of the signora, the 
count worked diligently for the immediate restitution of the 
estates. He was ably seconded by the young princess of 
Schyll-Weilingen, — by marriage countess of Fohrendorf, 
duchess of Graatli, in central Germany, by which title she 
passed, — an Austrian princess j she who had loved Giacomo, 
and would have given all for him, and who now loved his 
widow. The extreme and painful difficulty was that the 
signora Piaveni made no concealment of her abhorrence of 
the House of Austria, and hatred of Austrian rule in Italy. 
The spirit of her dead husband had come to her from the 
grave, and warmed a frame previously indifferent to any- 
thing save his personal merits. It had been covertly com- 
municated to her that if she performed due submission to 
the authorities, and lived for six months in good legal, that 
is to say, non-patriotic odour, she might hope to have the 
estates. The duchess had obtained this mercy for her, and 
it was much ; for Giacomo’s scheme of revolt had been con- 
ceived with a subtlety of genius, and contrived on a scale 
sufficient to incense any despotic lord of such a glorious 
milch-cow as Lombardy. Unhappily the signora was more 
inspired by the remembrance of her husband than by consid- 
eration for her children. She received disaffected persons : 


98 


VITTORIA 


she subscribed her money ostentatiously for notoriously pa- 
triotic purposes ; and she who, in her father’s .Como villa, had 
been a shy speechless girl, nothing more than beautiful, had 
become celebrated for her public letters, and the ardour of 
declamation against the foreigner which characterized her 
style. In the face of such facts, the estates continued to be 
withheld from her governance. Austria could do that : she 
could wreak her spite against the woman, but she respected 
her own law even in a conquered land : the estates were not 
confiscated, and not absolutely sequestrated; and, indeed, 
money coming from them had been sent to her for the edu- 
cation of her children. It lay in unopened official envelopes,’ 
piled one upon another, quarterly remittances, horrible as 
blood of slaughter in her sight. Count Serabiglione made 
a point of counting the packets always within the first five 
minutes of a visit to his daughter. He said nothing, but 
was careful to see to the proper working of the lock of the 
cupboard where the precious deposits were kept, and some- 
times in forgetfulness he carried off the key. When his 
daughter reclaimed it, she observed, “ Pray believe me quite 
as anxious as yourself to preserve these documents.” And 
the count answered, “They represent the estates, and are 
of legal value, though the amount is small. They represent 
your protest, and the admission of your claim. They are 
priceless.” 

In some degree, also, they compensated him for the ex- 
pense he was put to in providing for his daughter’s sub- 
sistence and that of her children. For there, at all events, 
visible before his eyes, was the value of the money, if not the 
money expended. He remonstrated with Laura for leaving 
it more than necessarily exposed. She replied, “ My people 
know what that money means ! ” implying, of course, that 
no one in her house would consequently touch it. Yet it 
was reserved for the count to find it gone. 

The discovery was made by the astounded nobleman on 
the day preceding Yittoria’s appearance at La Scala. His 
daughter being absent, he had visited the cupboard merely 
to satisfy an habitual curiosity. The cupboard was open, 
and had evidently been ransacked. He rang up the domestics, 
and would have charged them all with having done violence 
to the key, but that on reflection he considered this to be a 


LAURA PIAVENI 


99 


way of binding faggots together, and he resolved to take 
them one by one, like the threading Jesuit that he was, and 
so get a Judas. Laura’s return saved him from much exer- 
cise of his peculiar skill. She, with a cool “ Ebbene ! ” asked 
him how long he had expected the money to remain there. 
Upon which, enraged, he accused her of devoting the money 
to the accursed patriotic cause. And here they came to a 
curious open division. 

“Be content, my father,” she said; “the money is my 
husband’s, and is expended on his behalf.” 

“ You waste it among the people who were the cause of his 
ruin ! ” her father retorted. 

“ You presume me to have returned it to the Government, 
possibly ? ” 

“ I charge you with tossing it to your so-called patriots.” 

“ Sir, if I have done that, I have done well.” 

“ Hear her ! ” cried the count to the attentive ceiling; and 
addressing her with an ironical “ madame,” he begged per- 
mission to inquire of her whether haply she might be the 
person in the pay of Revolutionists who was about to appear 
at La Scala, under the name of the signorina Yittoria. “ For 
you are getting dramatic in your pose, my Laura,” he added, 
familiarizing the colder tone of his irony. “You are be- 
ginning to stand easily in attitudes of defiance to your own 
father.” 

“ That I may practise how to provoke a paternal Govern- 
ment, you mean,” she rejoined, and was quite a match for 
him in dialectics. 

The count chanced to allude further to the signorina 
Yittoria. 

“ Do you know much of that lady ? ” she asked. 

“ As much as is known,” said he. 

They looked at one another ; the count thinking, “ I gave 
to this girl an excess of brains, in my folly ! ” 

Compelled to drop his eyes, and vexed by the tacit defeat, 
he pursued, “ You expect great things from her ? ” 

“ Great,” said his daughter. 

“Well, well,” he murmured acquiescingly, while sounding 
within himself for the part to play. “ Well — yes ! she may 
do what you expect.” 

“ There is not the slightest doubt of her capacity,” said his 


100 


YITTOHIA 


daughter, in a tone of such perfect conviction that the count 
was immediately and irresistibly tempted to play the part of 
sagacious, kindly, tolerant, but foreseeing father ; and in this 
becoming character he exposed the risks her party ran in 
trusting anything of weight to a woman. Not that he decried 
women. Out of their sphere he did not trust them, and he 
simply objected to them when out of their sphere : the last 
four words being uttered staccato. 

“ But we trust her to do what she has undertaken to do,” 
said Laura. 

The count brightened prodigiously from his suspicion to a 
certainty ; and as he was still smiling at the egregious trap 
his clever but unskilled daughter had fallen into, he found 
himself listening incredulously to her plain additional sen- 
tence : — 

“ She has easy command of three octaves.” 

By which the allusion was transformed from politics to 
Art. Had Laura reserved this cunning turn a little further, 
yielding to the natural temptation to increase the shock of 
the antithetical battery, she would have betrayed herself: 
but it came at the right moment: the count gave up his 
arms. He told her that this signorina Yittoria was suspected. 
“Whom will they not suspect!” interjected Laura. He 
assured her that if a conspiracy had ripened it must fail. 
She was to believe that he abhorred the part of a spy or 
informer, but he was bound, since she was reckless, to watch 
over his daughter; and also bound, that he might be of 
service to her, to earn by service to others as much power as 
he could reasonably hope to obtain. Laura signified that he 
argued excellently well. In a fit of unjustified doubt of her 
sincerity, he complained, with a querulous snap : — 

“ You have your own ideas ; you have your own ideas. 
You think me this and that. A man must be employed.” 

“And this is to account for your occupation?” she 
remarked. 

“ Employed, I say ! ” the count reiterated fretfully. He 
was unmasking to no purpose, and felt himself as on a slope, 
having given his adversary vantage. 

“ So that there is no choice for you, do you mean ? ” 

The count set up a staggering affirmative, but knocked it 
over with its natural enemy as soon as his daughter had 


LAURA PIAVENI 101 

said, “Not being for Italy, you must necessarily be against 
her : — I admit that to be the position ! ” 

“No!” he cried; “no: there is no question of ‘for’ or 
‘ against/ as you are aware. ‘ Italy, and not Revolution : ’ 
that is my motto.” 

“ Or, in other words, ‘ The Impossible/ ” said Laura. “ A 
perfect motto ! ” 

Again the count looked at her, with the remorseful 
thought : “ I certainly gave you too much brains.” 

He smiled: “If you could only believe it not impos- 
sible ! ” 

“Do you really imagine that ‘ Italy without Revolution ’ 
does not mean ‘ Austria ’ ? ” she inquired. 

She had discovered how much he, and therefore his party, 
suspected, and now she had reasons for wishing him away. 
Not daring to show symptoms of restlessness, she offered 
him the chance of recovering himself on the crutches of an 
explanation. He accepted the assistance, praising his wits 
for their sprightly divination, and went through a long- 
winded statement of his views for the welfare of Italy, quot- 
ing his favourite Berni frequently, and forcing the occasion 
for that jolly poet. Laura gave quiet attention to all, and 
when he was exhausted at the close, said meditatively, “ Yes. 
Well ; you are older. It may seem to you that I shall think 
as you do when I have had a similar, or the same, length of 
experience.” 

This provoking reply caused her father to jump up from 
his chair and spin round for his hat. She rose to speed him 
forth. 

“ It may seem to me ! ” he kept muttering. “ It may seem 
to me that when a daughter gets married — addio ! — she is 
nothing but her husband.” 

“ Ay ! ay ! if it might be so ! ” the signora wailed out. 

The count hated tears, considering them a clog to all 
useful machinery. He was departing, when through the 
open window a noise of scuffling in the street below arrested 
him. 

“ Has it commenced ? ” he said, starting. 

“ What ? ” asked the signora, coolly ; and made him pause. 

“But — but — but!” he answered, and had the grace to 
spare her ears. The thought in him was : “ But that I had 


102 


YITTORIA 


some faith in my wife, and don’t admire the devil sufficiently, 
I would accuse him point-blank, for, by Bacchus ! you are as 
clever as he.” 

It is a point in the education of parents that they should 
learn to apprehend humbly the compliment of being out- 
witted by their own offspring. 

Count Serabiglione leaned out of the window and saw 
that his horses were safe and the coachman handy. There 
were two separate engagements going on between angry 
twisting couples. 

“ Is there a habitable town in Italy ? ” the count exclaimed 
frenziedly. First he called to his coachman to drive away, 
next to wait as if nailed to the spot. He cursed the revo- 
lutionary spirit as the mother of vices. While he was gazing 
at the fray, the door behind him opened, as he knew by the 
rush of cool air which struck his temples. He fancied that 
his daughter was hurrying off in obedience to a signal, and 
turned upon her just as Laura was motioning to a female 
figure in the doorway to retire. 

“ Who is this ? ” said the count. 

A veil was over the strange lady’s head. She was excited, 
and breathed quickly. The count brought forward a chair 
to her, and put on his best court manner. Laura caressed 
her, whispering, ere she replied: “The signorina Yittoria 
Bomana ! — Biancolla ! — Benarriva ! ” and numerous other 
names of inventive endearment. But the count was too 
sharp to be thrown off the scent. “ Aha ! ” he said, “ do I 
see her one evening before the term appointed ? ” and bowed 
profoundly. “ The signorina Yittoria ! ” 

She threw up her veil. 

“ Success is certain,” he remarked and applauded, hold- 
ing one hand as a snuff-box for the fingers of the other to 
tap on. 

“ Signor Conte, you must not praise me before you have 
heard me.” 

“ To have seen you ! ” 

“ The voice has a wider dominion, signor Conte.” 

“The fame of the signorina’s beauty will soon be far 
wider. Was Yenus a cantatrice ? ” 

She blushed, being unable to continue this sort of Mayfly- 
shooting dialogue, but her first charming readiness had 


LAURA PIAVEUI 


108 


affected the proficient social gentleman very pleasantly, and 
with fascinated eyes he hummed and buzzed about her like 
a moth at a lamp. Suddenly his head dived: “ Nothing, 
nothing, signorina,” he said, brushing delicately at her 
dress; “I thought it might be paint.” He smiled to 
reassure her, and then he dived again, murmuring : “ It 
must be something sticking to the dress. Pardon me.” 
With that he went to the bell. “I will ring up my 
daughter’s maid. Or Laura — where is Laura ? ” 

The signora Piaveni had walked to the window. This 
antiquated fussiness of the dilettante little nobleman was 
sickening to her. 

“ Probably you expect to discover a revolutionary symbol 
in the lines of the signorina’s dress,” she said. 

“ A revolutionary symbol ! — my dear ! my dear ! ” The 
count reproved his daughter. “ Is not our signorina a pure 
artist, accomplishing easily three octaves ? aha ! Three ! ” 
and he rubbed his hands. “ But, three good octaves ! ” he 
addressed Yittoria seriously and admonishingly. “It is a 
fortune — millions ! It is precisely the very grandest heri- 
tage ! It is an army ! ” 

“ I trust that it may be ! ” said Yittoria, with so deep and 
earnest a ring of her voice that the count himself, malicious 
as his ejaculations had been, was astonished. At that 
instant Laura cried from the window : “ These horses will 
go mad.” 

The exclamation had the desired effect. 

“Eh? — pardon me, signorina,” said the count, moving 
half-way to the window, and then askant for his hat. The 
clatter of the horses’ hoofs sent him dashing through the 
doorway, at which place his daughter stood with his hat 
extended. He thanked and blessed her for the kindly atten- 
tion, and in terror lest the signorina should think evil of him 
as ‘one of the generation of the hasty,’ he said, “Were it 
anything but horses ! anything but horses ! one’s horses ! — 
ha ! ” The audible hoofs called him off. He kissed the tips 
of his fingers, and tripped out. 

The signora stepped rapidly to the window, and leaning 
there, cried a word to the coachman, who signalled perfect 
comprehension, and immediately the count’s horses were on 
their hind-legs, chafing and pulling to right and left, and 


104 


VITTORIA 


the street was tumultuous with them. She flung down the 
window, seized Vittoria’s cheeks in her two hands, and 
pressed the head upon her bosom. “ He will not disturb us 
again,” she said, in quite a new tone, sliding her hands from 
the cheeks to the shoulders and along the arms to the 
fingers’-ends, which they clutched lovingly. “ He is of the 
old school, friend of my heart ! and besides, he has but two 
pairs of horses, and one he keeps in Vienna. We live in the 
hope that our masters will pay us better ! Tell me ! you are 
in good health ? All is well with you ? Will they have to 
put paint on her soft cheeks to-morrow ? Little, if they 
hold the colour as full as now ? My Sandra ! arnica ! should 
I have been jealous if Giacomo had known you? On my 
soul, I cannot guess ! But, you love what he loved. He 
seems to live for me when they are talking of Italy, and you 
send your eyes forward as if you saw the country free. God 
help me ! how I have been containing myself for the last 
hour and a half ! ” 

The signora dropped in a seat and laughed a languid 
laugh. 

“ The little ones ? I will ring for them. Assunta shall 
bring them down in their night-gowns if they are undressed; 
and we will muffle the windows, for my little man will be 
wanting his song ; and did you not promise him the great 
one which is to raise Italy — his mother, from the dead ? 
Do you remember our little fellow’s eyes as he tried to see 
the picture ? I fear I force him too much, and there’s no 
need — not a bit.” 

The time was exciting, and the signora spoke excitedly. 
Messina and Beggio were in arms. South Italy had given 
the open signal. It was near upon the hour of the unmask- 
ing of the great Lombard conspiracy, and Vittoria, standing 
there, was the beacon-light of it. Her presence filled Laura 
with transports of exultation ; and shy of displaying it, and 
of the theme itself, she let her tongue run on, and satisfied 
herself by smoothing the hand of the brave girl on her chin, 
and plucking with little loving tugs at her skirts. In doing 
this she suddenly gave a cry, as if stung. 

“ You carry pins,” she said. And inspecting the skirts 
more closely, “You have a careless maid in that creature 
Giacinta ; she lets paper stick to your dress. What is this ? ” 


THE BRONZE BUTTERFLY 


105 


Yittoria turned her head, and gathered up her dress to 
see. 

“ Pinned with the butterfly ! ” Laura spoke under her 
breath. 

Yittoria asked what it meant. 

“Nothing — nothing,” said her friend, and rose, pulling 
her eagerly toward the lamp. 

A small bronze butterfly secured a square piece of paper 
with clipped corners to her dress. Two words were written 
on it : — 

“Sei sospetta.” 


CHAPTER XII 

THE BRONZE BUTTERFLY 

The two women were facing one another in a painful 
silence when Carlo Ammiani was announced to them. He 
entered with a rapid stride, and struck his hands together 
gladly at sight of Yittoria. 

Laura met his salutation by lifting the accusing butterfly 
attached to Yittoria’s dress. 

“Yes; I expected it,” he said, breathing quick from 
recent exertion. “They are kind — they give her a per- 
sonal warning. Sometimes the dagger heads the butterfly. 
I have seen the mark on the Play-bills affixed to the signo- 
rina’s name.” 

“What does it mean?” said Laura, speaking huskily, 
with her head bent over the bronze insect. “ What can it 
mean ? ” she asked again, and looked up to meet a covert 
answer. 

“Unpin it.” Yittoria raised her arms as if she felt the 
thing to be enveloping her. 

The signora loosened the pin from its hold ; but dreading 
lest she thereby sacrificed some possible clue to the mystery, 
she hesitated in her action, and sent an intolerable shiver of 
spite through Yittoria’s frame, at whom she gazed in a cold 
and cruel way, saying, “Don’t tremble.” And again, “Is 


106 


VITTORIA 


it the doing of that garritrice magrezza, whom you call la 
Lazzeruola ? Speak. Can you trace it to her hand ? Who 
put the plague-mark upon you ? ” 

Vittoria looked steadily away from her. 

“It means just this/’ Carlo interposed; — “there! now 
it’s off ; and, signorina, I entreat you to think nothing of it, 
— it means that anyone who takes a chief part in the game 
we play, shall and must provoke all fools, knaves, and idiots 
to think and do their worst. They can’t imagine a pure 
devotion. Yes, I see — ‘ Sei sospetta.’ They would write 
their Sei sospetta upon St. Catherine in the Wheel. Put it 
out of your mind. Pass it.” 

“ But they suspect her ; and why do they suspect her ? ” 
Laura questioned vehemently. “ I ask, is it a Conservatorio 
rival, or the brand of one of the Clubs ? She has no 
answer.” 

“ Observe.” Carlo laid the paper under her eyes. Three 
angles were clipped, the fourth was doubled under. He 
turned it back and disclosed the initials B. R. “ This also is 
the work of our man-devil, as I thought. I begin to think 
that we shall be eternally thwarted, until we first clear our 
Italy of its vermin. Here is a weazel, a snake, a tiger, in 
one. They call him the Great Cat. He fancies himself a 
patriot, — he is only a conspirator. I denounce him, but he 
gets the faith of people, our Agostino among them, I believe. 
The energy of this wretch is terrific. He has the vigour of 
a fasting saint. Myself — I declare it to you, signora, with 
shame, I know what it is to fear this man. He has Satanic 
blood, and the worst is, that the Chief trusts him.” 

“Then, so do I,” said Laura. 

“ And I,” Vittoria echoed her. 

A sudden squeeze beset her fingers. “ And I trust you,” 
Laura said to her. “But there has been some indiscretion. 
My child, wait : give no heed to me, and have no feelings. 
Carlo, my friend — my husband’s boy-brother-in-arms! let 
her teach you to be generous. She must have been indis- 
creet. Has she friends among the Austrians ? I have one, 
and it is known, and I am not suspected. But, has she ! 
What have you said or done that might cause them to sus- 
pect you ? Speak, Sandra mia.” 

It was difficult for Vittoria to speak upon the theme, 


THE BRONZE BUTTERFLY 


107 


which made her appear as a criminal replying to a charge. 
At last she said, “ English : I have no foreign friends but 
English. I remember nothing that I have done. — Yes, I 
have said I thought I might tremble if I was led out to be 
shot.” 

“ Pish ! tush ! ” Laura checked her. “ They flog women, 
they do not shoot them. They shoot men.” 

“ That is our better fortune,” said Ammiani. 

“But, Sandra, my sister,” Laura persisted now, in melo- 
dious coaxing tones. “ Can you not help us to guess ? I am 
troubled : I am stung. It is for your sake I feel it so. Can’t 
you imagine who did it, for instance ? ” 

“ No, signora, I cannot,” Vittoria replied. 

“ You can’t guess ? ” 

“ I cannot help you.” 

“You will not!” said the irritable woman. “Have you 
noticed no one passing near you ? ” 

“A woman brushed by me as I entered this street. I 
remember no one else. And my Beppo seized a man who 
was spying on me, as he said. That is all I can remember.” 

Vittoria turned her face to Ammiani. 

“ Barto Rizzo has lived in England,” he remarked, half to 
himself. “ Did you come across a man called Barto Rizzo 
there, signorina ? I suspect him to be the author of this.” 

At the name of Barto Rizzo, Laura’s eyes widened, 
awakening a memory in Ammiani; and her face had a 
spectral wanness. 

“ I must go to my chamber,” she said. “ Talk of it to- 
gether. I will be with you soon.” 

She left them. 

Ammiani bent over to Vittoria’s ear. “ It was this man 
who sent the warning to Giacomo, the signora’s husband, 
which he despised, and which would have saved him. 
It is the only good thing I know of Barto Rizzo. Pardon 
her.” 

“ I do,” said the girl, now weeping. 

“ She has evidently a rooted superstitious faith in these 
revolutionary sign-marks. They are contagious to her. She 
loves you, and believes in you, and will kneel to you for for- 
giveness by-and-by. Her misery is a disease. She thinks 
now, 1 If my husband had given heed to the warning ! ’ ” 


108 


VITTORIA 


“ Yes, I see how her heart works,” said Vittoria. “You 
knew her husband, signor Carlo ? ” 

“ I knew him. I served under him. He was the brother 
of my love. I shall have no other.” 

Vittoria placed her hand for Ammiani to take it. He 
joined his own to the fevered touch. The heart of the young 
man swelled most ungovernably, but the perils of the mor- 
row were imaged by him, circling her as with a tragic flame, 
and he had no word for his passion. 

The door opened, when a noble little boy bounded into 
the room, followed by a little girl in pink and white, like a 
streamer in the steps of her brother. With shouts, and with 
arms thrown forward, they flung themselves upon Vittoria, 
the boy claiming all her lap, and the girl struggling for a 
share of the kingdom. Vittoria kissed them, crying, “Ho, 
no, no, Messer Jack, this is a republic, and not an empire, 
and you are to have no rights of ‘ first come ; ’ and Amalia 
sits on one knee, and you on one knee, and you sit face to 
face, and take hands, and swear to be satisfied.” 

“Then I desire not to be called an English Christian 
name, and you will call me Giacomo,” said the boy. 

Vittoria sang, in mountain-notes, “ Giacomo ! — Giacomo ! 
— Giac-giac-giac .... como ! ” 

The children listened, glistening up at her, and in con- 
junction jumped and shouted for more. 

“ More ? ” said Vittoria ; “ but is the signor Carlo no friend 
of ours ? and does he wear a magic ring that makes him 
invisible ? ” 

“Let the German girl go to him,” said Giacomo, and 
strained his throat to reach at kisses. 

“ I am not a German girl,” little Amalia protested, refus- 
ing to go to Carlo Ammiani under that stigma, though a 
delightful haven of open arms and knees, and filliping 
fingers, invited her. 

“ She is not a German girl, 0 signor Giacomo,” said Vit- 
toria, in the theatrical manner. 

“ She has a German name.” 

“ It’s not a German name ! ” the little girl shrieked. 

Giacomo set Amalia to a miauling tune. 

“So, you hate the Duchess of Graatli!” said Vittoria. 
“Very well. I shall remember.” 


THE BRONZE BUTTERFLY 


109 


The boy declared that he did not hate his mother’s friend 
and sister’s godmother: he rather liked her, he really liked 
her, he loved her ; but he loathed the name “ Amalia,” and 
could not understand why the duchess would be a German. 
He concluded by miauling “ Amalia” in the triumph of 
contempt. 

“ Cat, begone ! ” said Yittoria, promptly setting him down 
on his feet, and little Amalia at the same time perceiving 
that practical sympathy only required a ring at the bell for 
it to come out, straightway pulled the wires within herself, 
and emitted a doleful wail that gave her sole possession of 
Yittoria’s bosom, where she was allowed to bring her tears 
to an end very comfortingly. Giacomo meanwhile, his body 
bent in an arch, plucked at Carlo Ammiani’s wrists with 
savagely playful tugs, and took a stout boy’s lesson in the 
art of despising what he coveted. He had only to ask for 
pardon. Finding it necessary, he came shyly up to Yittoria, 
who put Amalia in his way, kissing whom, he was himself 
tenderly kissed. 

“ But girls should not cry ! ” Yittoria reproved the little 
woman. 

“ Why do you cry ? ” asked Amalia simply. 

“ See ! she has been crying.” Giacomo appropriated 
the discovery, perforce of loudness, after the fashion of his 
sex. 

“ Why does our Yittoria cry ? ” both the children 
clamoured. 

“ Because your mother is such a cruel sister to her,” said 
Laura, passing up to them from the doorway. She drew 
Yittoria’s head against her breast, looked into her eyes, and 
sat down among them. Yittoria sang one low-toned soft 
song, like the voice of evening, before they were dismissed 
to their beds. She could not obey Giacomo’s demand for a 
martial air, and had to plead that she was tired. 

When the children had gone, it was as if a truce had 
ended. The signora and Ammiani fell to a brisk counter- 
change of questions relating to the mysterious suspicion 
which had fallen upon Yittoria. Despite Laura’s love for 
her, she betrayed her invincible feeling that there must be 
some grounds for special or temporary distrust. 

“ The lives that hang on it knock at me here,” she said, 


110 


VITTORIA 


touching under her throat with fingers set like falling 
arrows. 

But Ammiani, who moved in the centre of conspiracies, 
met at their councils, and knew their heads, and frequently 
combated their schemes, was not possessed by the same pro- 
found idea of their potential command of hidden facts and 
sovereign wisdom. He said, “We trust too much to one 
man. We are compelled to trust him, but we trust too 
much to him. I mean this man, this devil, Barto Rizzo. 
Signora, signora, he must be spoken of. He has dislocated 
the plot. He is the fanatic of the revolution, and we are 
trusting him as if he had full sway of reason. What is the 
consequence ? The Chief is absent : he is now, as I believe, 
in Genoa. All the plan for the rising is accurate; the 
instruments are ready, and we are paralyzed. I have been 
to three houses to-night, and where, two hours previously, 
there was union and concert, all are irresolute and divided. 
I have hurried off a messenger to the Chief. Until we hear 
from him, nothing can be done. I left Ugo Corte storming 
against us Milanese, threatening, as usual, to work without 
us, and have a Bergamasc and Brescian Republic of his own. 
Count Medole is for a week’s postponement. Agostino 
smiles and chuckles, and talks his poetisms.” 

“Until you hear from the Chief, nothing is to be done?” 
Laura said passionately. “Are we to remain in suspense? 
Impossible! I cannot bear it. We have plenty of arms 
in the city. Oh, that we had cannon! I worship cannon! 
They are the Gods of battle ! But if we surprise the cita- 
del ; • — one true shock of alarm makes a mob of an army. 
I have heard my husband say so. Let there be no delay. 
That is my word.” 

“But, signora, do you see that all concert about the 
signal is lost?” 

“ My friend, I see something ; ” Laura nodded a signifi- 
cant half-meaning at him. “And perhaps it will be as 
well. Go at once. See that another signal is decided 
upon. Oh! because we are ready — ready. Inaction now 
is uttermost anguish — kills the heart. What number of 
the white butchers have we in the city to-night?” 

“They are marching in at every gate. I saw a regiment 
of Hungarians coming up the Borgo della Stella. Two 


THE BRONZE BUTTERFLY 


111 


fresh squadrons of Uhlans in the Corso Francesco. In the 
Piazza d’Armi artillery is encamped.” 

“ The better for Brescia, for Bergamo, for Padua, for 
Venice!” exclaimed Laura. “ There is a limit to their 
power. We Milanese can match them. For days and days 
I have had a dream lying in my bosom that Milan was soon 
to breathe. Go, my brother; go to Barto ftizzo; gather 
him and Count Medole, Agostino, and Colonel Corte — to 
whom I kiss my fingers — gather them together, and 
squeeze their brains for the one spark of divine fire in 
this darkness which must exist where there are so many 
thorough men bent upon a sacred enterprise. And, Carlo,” 
— Laura checked her nervous voice, — “ don’t think I am 
declaiming to you from one of my ‘Midnight Lamps.’” 
(She spoke of the title of her pamphlets to the Italian 
people.) “You feel among us women very much as Agos- 
tino and Colonel Corte feel when the boy Carlo airs his 
impetuosities in their presence. Yes, my fervour makes a 
philosopher of you. That is human nature. Pity me, par- 
don me, and do my bidding.” 

The comparison of Ammiani’s present sentiments to 
those of the elders of the conspiracy, when his mouth was 
open in their midst, was severe and masterful, for the 
young man arose instantly without a thought in his head. 

He remarked : “ I will tell them that the signorina does 
not give the signal.” 

“ Tell them that the name she has chosen shall be Vit- 
toria still ; but say, that she feels a shadow of suspicion to 
be an injunction upon her at such a crisis, and she will 
serve silently and humbly until she is rightly known, and 
her time comes. She is willing to appear before them, 
and submit to interrogation. She knows her innocence, 
and knowing that they work for the good of the country, 
she, if it is their will, is content to be blotted out of all par- 
ticipation: — all! She abjures all for the common welfare. 
Say that. And say, to-morrow night the rising must be. 
Oh! to-morrow night! It is my husband to me.” 

Laura Piaveni crossed her arms upon her bosom. 

Ammiani was moving from them with a downward face, 
when a bell-note of Vittoria’s voice arrested him. 

“Stay, signor Carlo; I shall sing to-morrow night.” 


112 


YITTORIA 


The widow heard her through that thick emotion which 
had just closed her speech with its symbolical sensuous 
rapture. Divining opposition fiercely, like a creature 
thwarted when athirst for the wells, she gave her a ter- 
rible look, and then said cajolingly, as far as absence of 
sweetness could make the tones pleasant, “Yes, you will 
sing, but you will not sing that song.” 

“It is that song which I intend to sing, signora.” 

“When it is interdicted?” 

“There is only one whose interdict I can acknowledge.” 

“You will dare to sing in defiance of me?” 

“I dare nothing when I simply do my duty.” 

Ammiani went up to the window, and leaned there, eye- 
ing the lights leading down to the crowding Piazza. He 
wished that he were among the crowd, and might not hear 
those sharp stinging utterances coming from Laura, and 
Yittoria’ s unwavering replies, less frequent, but firmer, 
and gravely solid. Laura spent her energy in taunts, but 
Yittoria spoke only of her resolve, and to the point. It 
was, as his military instincts framed the. simile, like the 
venomous crackling of skirmishing rifles before a fortress, 
that answered slowly with its volume of sound and sweep- 
ing shot. He had the vision of himself pleading to secure 
her safety, and in her hearing, on the Motterone, where she 
had seemed so simple a damsel, albeit nobly enthusiastic: 
too fair, too gentle to be stationed in any corner of the con- 
flict at hand. Partly abased by the remembrance of his 
brainless intercessions then, and of the laughter which had 
greeted them, and which the signora had recently recalled, 
it was nevertheless not all in self-abasement (as the mo- 
mentary recognition of a splendid character is commonly 
with men) that he perceived the stature of Yittoria’ s soul. 
Bemembering also what the Chief had^spoken of women, 
Ammiani thought “Perhaps he has known one such as 
she.” The passion of the young man’s heart magnified 
her image. He did not wonder to see the signora acknow- 
ledge herself worsted in the conflict. 

“She talks like the edge of a sword,” cried Laura, des- 
perately, and dropped into a chair. “Take her home, and 
convince her, if you can, on the way, Carlo. I go to the 
Duchess of Graatli to-night. She has a reception. Take 


THE BRONZE BUTTERFLY 


118 


this girl home. She says she will sing: she obeys the 
Chief, and none but the Chief. We will not suppose that 
it is her desire to shine. She is suspected; she is accused; 
she is branded; there is no general faith in her; yet she 
will hold the torch to-morrow night: — and what ensues? 
Some will move, some turn back, some run headlong over 
to treachery, some hang irresolute: all are for the sham- 
bles! The blood is on her head.” 

“I will excuse myself to you another time,” said Yit- 
toria. “I love you, signora Laura.” 

“You do, you do, or you would not think of excusing 
yourself to me,” said Laura. “But now, go. You have 
cut me in two. Carlo Ammiani may succeed where I have 
failed, and I have used every weapon; enough to make a 
mean creature hate me for life and kiss me with transports. 
Do your best, Carlo, and let it be your utmost.” 

It remained for Ammiani to assure her that their views 
were different. 

“ The signorina persists in her determination to carry out 
the programme indicated by the Chief, and refuses to be 
diverted from her path by the false suspicions of subordi- 
nates.” He employed a sententious phraseology instinc- 
tively, as men do when they are nervous, as well as when 
they justify the cynic’s definition of the uses of speech. 
“The signorina is, in my opinion, right. If she draws 
back, she publicly accepts the blot upon her name. I 
speak against my own feelings and my wishes.” 

“Sandra, do you hear?” exclaimed Laura. “This is a 
friend’s interpretation of your inconsiderate wilfulness.” 

Vittoria was content to reply, “The signor Carlo judges 
of me differently.” 

“Go, then, and be fortified by him in this headstrong 
folly.” Laura motioned her hand, and laid it on her face. 

Yittoria knelt and enclosed her with her arms, kissing 
her knees. 

“Beppo waits for me at the house-door,” she said; but 
Carlo chose not to hear of this shadow-like Beppo. 

“ You have nothing to say for her save that she clears 
her name by giving the signal,” Laura burst out on his 
temperate “ Addio,” and started to her feet. “Well, let it 
be so. Fruitless blood again! A rivederla to you both. 


114 


YITTORIA 


To-night I am in the enemy’s camp. They play with open 
cards. Amalia tells me all she knows by what she dis- 
guises. I may learn something. Come to me to-morrow. 
My Sandra, I will kiss you. These shudderings of mine 
have no meaning.” 

The signora embraced her, and took Ammiani’s salute 
upon her fingers. 

“Sour fingers! ” he said. She leaned her cheek to him, 
whispering, “I could easily be persuaded to betray you.” 

He answered, “ I must have some merit in not betraying 
myself.” 

“ At each elbow ! ” she laughed. “ You show the thumps 
of an electric battery at each elbow, and expect your God- 
dess of lightnings not to see that she moves you. Go. 
You have not sided with me, and I am right, and I am a 
woman. By the way, Sandra mia, I would beg the loan of 
your Beppo for two hours or less.” 

Yittoria placed Beppo at her disposal. 

“And you run home to bed,” continued Laura. “Beason 
comes to you obstinate people when you are left alone for a 
time in the dark.” 

She hardly listened to Yittoria’ s statement that the chief 
singers in the new opera were engaged to attend a meeting 
at eleven at night at the house of the maestro Bocco Bicci. 


CHAPTEB XIII 

THE PLOT OF THE SIGNOR ANTONIO 

There was no concealment as to Laura’s object in mak- 
ing request for the services of Beppo. She herself knew it 
to be obvious that she intended to probe and cross-examine 
the man, and in her wilfulness she chose to be obtuse to 
opinion. She did not even blush to lean a secret ear above 
the stairs that she might judge, by the tones of Vittoria’s 
voice upon her giving Beppo the order to wait, whether she 
was at the same time conveying a hint for guardedness. 
But Yittoria said not a word: it was Ammiani who gave the 


THE PLOT OF THE SIGNOR ANTONIO 


115 


order. “I am despicable in distrusting her for a single 
second,” said Laura. That did not the less encourage her 
to question Beppo rigorously forthwith ; and as she was not 
to be deceived by an Italian’s affectation of simplicity, she 
let him answer two or three times like a plain fool, and 
then abruptly accused him of standing prepared with these 
answers. Beppo, within his own bosom, immediately as- 
cribed to his sagacious instinct the mere spirit of opposi- 
tion and dislike to serve anyone save his own young mis- 
tress which had caused him to irritate the signora and be 
on his guard. He proffered a candid admission of the 
truth of the charge; adding, that he stood likewise pre- 
pared with an unlimited number of statements. “Ques- 
tions, illustrious signora, invariably put me on the defensive, 
and seem to cry for a return thrust; and this I account for 
by the fact that my mother — the blessed little woman now 
among the Saints ! — was questioned, brows and heels, by a 
ferruginously-faced old judge at the momentous period when 
she carried me. So that, a question — and I show point ; 
but ask me for a statement, and, ah, signora!” Beppo 
delivered a sweep of the arm, as to indicate the spontane- 
ous flow of his tongue. 

“I think,” said Laura, “you have been a soldier, and a 
serving-man.” 

“And a scene-shifter, most noble signora, at La Scala.” 

“ You accompanied the signor Mertyrio to England when 
he was wounded? ” 

“I did.” 

“And there you beheld the signorina Vittoria, who was 
then bearing the name of Emilia Belloni?” 

“Which name she changed on her arrival in Italy, illus- 
trious signora, for that of Vittoria Campa — ‘suW campo 
della gloria 9 — ah ! ah ! — her own name being an attrac- 
tion to the blow-flies in her own country. All this is 
true.” 

“ It should be a comfort to you! The signor Mertyrio . . .” 

Beppo writhed his person at the continuance of the ques- 
tionings, and obtaining a pause, he rushed into his state- 
ment : “ The signor Mertyrio was well, and on the point of 
visiting Italy, and quitting the wave-embraced island of 
fog, of beer, of moist winds, and much money, and much 


116 


VITTORIA 


kindness, where great hearts grew. The signorina corre- 
sponded with him, and with him only.” 

“ You know that, and will swear to it? ” Laura exclaimed. 

Beppo thereby receiving the cue he had commenced beat- 
ing for, swore to its truth profoundly, and straightway 
directed his statement to prove that his mistress had not 
been politically (or amorously, if the suspicion aimed at 
her in those softer regions) indiscreet or blameable in any 
of her actions. The signorina, he said, never went out 
from her abode without the companionship of her meritori- 
ous mother and his own most humble attendance. He, 
Beppo, had a master and a mistress, the signor Mertyrio 
and the signorina Yittoria. She saw no foreigners : though 
— a curious thing! — he had seen her when the English 
language was talked in her neighbourhood; and she had a 
love for that language : it made her face play in smiles like 
an infant’s after it has had suck and is full; — the sort of 
look you perceive when one is dreaming and hears music. 
She did not speak to foreigners. She did not care to go to 
foreign cities, but loved Milan, and lived in it free and 
happy as an earwig in a ripe apricot. The circumvalla- 
tion of Milan gave her elbow-room enough, owing to the 
absence of forts all round — “ which knock one’s funny-bone 
in Verona, signora.” Beppo presented a pure smile upon 
a simple bow for acceptance. “The air of Milan,” he went 
on, with less confidence under Laura’s steady gaze, and 
therefore more forcing of his candour — “ the sweet air of 
Milan gave her a deep chestful, so that she could hold her 
note as long as five lengths of a fiddle-bow : — by the body 
of Sant’ Ambrogio, it was true ! ” Beppo stretched out his 
arm, and chopped his hand edgeways five testificatory times 
on the shoulder-ridge. “Ay, a hawk might fly from St. 
Luke’s head (on the Duomo) to the stone on San Primo 
over Como, while the signorina held on her note! You 
listened, you gasped — you thought of a poet in his dun- 
geon, and suddenly, behold, his chains are struck off! — 
you thought of a gold-shelled tortoise making his pilgrimage 
to a beatific shrine ! — you thought — you knew not what 
you thought ! ” 

Here Beppo sank into a short silence of ecstasy, and 
wakening from it, as with an ardent liveliness: “The 


THE PLOT OF THE SIGNOR ANTONIO 117 

signora has heard her sing? How to describe it! To- 
morrow night will be a feast for Milan.” 

“You think that the dilettanti of Milan will have a 
delight to-morrow night? ” said Laura; but seeing that the 
man’s keen ear had caught note of the ironic reptile under 
the flower, and unwilling to lose further time, she inter- 
dicted his reply. 

“Beppo, my good friend, you are a complete Italian — 
you waste your cleverness. You will gratify me by remem- 
bering that I am your countrywoman. I have already done 
you a similar favour by allowing you to air your utmost 
ingenuity. The reflection that it has been to no purpose 
will neither scare you nor instruct you. Of that I am quite 
assured. I speak solely to suit the present occasion. Now, 
don’t seek to elude me. If you are a snake with friends 
as well as enemies, you are nothing but a snake. I ask 
you — you are not compelled to answer, but I forbid you 
to lie — has your mistress seen, or conversed and had 
correspondence with anyone receiving the Tedeschi’s gold, 
man or woman? Can anyone, man or woman, call her a 
traitress?” 

“Not twice!” thundered Beppo, with a furrowed red 
forehead. 

There was a noble look about the fellow as he stood with 
stiff legs in a posture, frowning — theatrical, but noble 
also; partly the look of a Figaro defending his honour in 
extremity, yet much like a statue of a French Marshal of 
the Empire. 

“That will do,” said Laura, rising. She was about to 
leave him, when the Duchess of G-raatli’s chasseur was 
ushered in, bearing a missive from Amalia, her friend. 
She opened it and read : — 

“Best beloved, — Am I soon to be reminded bitterly 
that there is a river of steel between my heart and me? 

“Fail not in coming to-night. Your new Bulbul is in 
danger. The silly thing must have been reading Koman 
history. Say not no! It intoxicates you all. I watch 
over her for my Laura’s sake : a thousand kisses I shower 
on you, dark delicious soul that you are ! Are you not my 
pine-grove leading to the evening star? Come, that we 


118 


VITTORIA 


may consult how to spirit her away during her season of 
peril. Gulfs do not close over little female madcaps, my 
Laura; so we must not let her take the leap. Enter the 
salle when you arrive: pass down it once and return upon 
your steps ; then to my boudoir. My maid Aennchen will 
conduct you. Addio. Tell this messenger that you come. 
Laura mine, I am for ever thy 

“Amalia.” 

Laura signalled to the chasseur that her answer was 
affirmative. As he was retiring, his black-plumed hat 
struck against Beppo, who thrust him aside and gave the 
hat a dexterous kick, all the while keeping a decorous front 
toward the signora. She stood meditating. The enraged 
chasseur mumbled a word or two for Beppo’s ear, in execra- 
ble Italian, and went. Beppo then commenced bowing half 
toward the doorway, and tried to shoot through, out of 
sight and away, in a final droop of excessive servility, but 
the signora stopped him, telling him to consider himself 
her servant until the morning : at which he manifested a 
surprising readiness, indicative of nothing short of personal 
devotion, and remained for two minutes after she had 
quitted the room. So much time having elapsed, he ran 
bounding down the stairs and found the hall-door locked, 
and that he was a prisoner during the signora’s pleasure. 
The discovery that he was mastered by superior cunning, in- 
stead of disconcerting, quieted him wonderfully ; so he put by 
the resources of his ingenuity for the next opportunity, and 
returned stealthily to his starting-point, where the signora 
found him awaiting her with composure. The man was in 
mortal terror lest he might be held guilty of a trust betrayed, 
in leaving his mistress for an hour, even in obedience to 
her command, at this crisis : but it was not in his nature 
to state the case openly to the signora, whom he knew to 
be his mistress’s friend, or to think of practising other than 
shrewd evasion to accomplish his duty and satisfy his 
conscience. 

Laura said, without smiling, “ The street-door opens with 
a key, ” and she placed the key in his hand, also her fan to 
carry. Once out of the house, she was sure that he would 
not forsake his immediate charge of the fan: she walked 


THE PLOT OF THE SIGNOR ANTONIO 


119 


on, heavily veiled, confident of his following. The Duchess 
of Gra&tli’s house neighboured the Corso Francesco; numer- 
ous carriages were disburdening their freights of fair guests, 
and now and then an Austrian officer in full uniform ran up 
the steps, glittering under the lamps. “I go in among 
them,” thought Laura. It rejoiced her that she had come 
on foot. Forgetting Beppo, and her black fan, as no Italian 
woman would have done but she who paced in an acute 
quivering pf the anguish of hopeless remembrances and 
hopeless thirst of vengeance, she suffered herself to be 
conducted in the midst of the guests, and shuddered like 
one who has taken a fever-chill as she fulfilled the duchess’s 
directions ; she passed down the length of the saloon, through 
a light of visages that were not human to her sensations. 

Meantime Beppo, oppressed by his custody of the fan, 
and expecting that most serviceable lady’s instrument to 
be sent for at any minute, stood among a strange body of 
semi-feudal retainers below, where he was soon singled out 
by the duchess’s chasseur, a Styrian, who, masking his 
fury under jest, in the South-German manner, endeavoured 
to lead him up to an altercation. But Beppo was much too 
supple to be entrapped. He apologized for any possible 
offences that he might have committed, assuring the chas- 
seur that he considered one hat as good as another, and 
some hats better than others : in proof of extreme cordial- 
ity, he accepted the task of repeating the chasseur’s name, 
which was ‘Jacob Baumwalder Feckelwitz,’ a tolerable 
mouthful for an Italian; and it was with remarkable deli- 
cacy that Beppo contrived to take upon himself the whole 
ridicule of his vile pronunciation of the unwieldy name. 
Jacob Baumwalder Feckelwitz offered him beer to refresh 
him after the effort. While Beppo was drinking, he seized 
the fan. “Good; good; a thousand thanks,” said Beppo, 
relinquishing it; “convey it aloft, I beseech you.” He dis- 
played such alacrity and lightness of limb at getting rid of 
it, that Jacob thrust it between the buttons of his shirt- 
front, returning it to his possession by that aperture. 
Beppo’s head sank. A handful of black lace and cedar- 
wood chained him to the spot! He entreated the men in 
livery to take the fan upstairs and deliver it to the signora 
Laura Piaveni; but they, being advised by Jacob, refused. 


120 


VITTORIA 


“Go yourself,” said Jacob, laughing, and little prepared to 
see the victim, on whom he thought that for another hour 
at least he had got his great paw firmly, take him at his 
word. Beppo sprang into the hall and up the stairs. The 
duchess’s maid, ivory-faced Aennchen, was flying past him. 
She saw a very taking dark countenance making eyes at 
her, leaned her ear shyly, and pretending to understand all 
that was- said by the rapid foreign tongue, acted from the 
suggestion of the sole thing which she did understand. 
Beppo had mentioned the name of the signora Piaveni. 
“This way,” she indicated with her finger, supposing that 
of course he wanted to see the signora very urgently. 

Beppo tried hard to get her to carry the fan; but she 
lifted her fingers in a perfect Susannah horror of it, though 
still bidding him to follow. Naturally she did not go fast 
through the dark passages, where the game of the fan was 
once more played out, and with accompaniments. The 
accompaniments she objected to no further than a fish is 
agitated in escaping from the hook; but “Nein, nein! ” in 
her own language, and “No, no!” in his, burst from her 
lips whenever he attempted to transfer the fan to her keep- 
ing. “ These white women are most wonderful ! ” thought 
Beppo, ready to stagger between perplexity and impatience. 

“There; in there!” said Aennchen, pointing to a light 
that came through the folds of a curtain. Beppo kissed 
her fingers as they tugged unreluctantly in his clutch, and 
knew by a little pause that the case was hopeful for higher 
privileges. What to do? He had not an instant to spare; 
yet he dared not offend a woman’s vanity. He gave an 
ecstatic pressure of her hand upon his breast-bone, to let 
her be sure she was adored, albeit not embraced. After 
this act of prudence he went toward the curtain, while the 
fair Austrian soubrette flew on her previous errand. 

It was enough that Beppo found himself in a dark ante- 
chamber for him to be instantly scrupulous in his footing 
and breathing. As he touched the curtain, a door opened on 
the other side of the interior, and a tender gabble of fresh 
feminine voices broke the stillness and ran on like a brook 
coming from leaps to a level, and again leaping and making 
noise of joy. The Duchess of Graatli had clasped the signora 
Laura’s two hands and drawn her to an ottoman, and between 


THE PLOT OF THE SIGNOK ANTONIO 


121 


kissings and warmer claspings, was questioning of the little 
ones, Giacomo and her god-daughter Amalia. 

“ When, when did I see you last ? ” she exclaimed. “ Oh ! 
not since we met that morning to lay our immortelles upon 
his tomb. My soul’s sister ! kiss me, remembering it. I 
saw you in the gateway — it seemed to me, as in a vision, 
that we had both had one warning to come for him, and 
knock, and the door would be opened, and our beloved would 
come forth ! That was many days back. It is to me like 
a day locked up for ever in a casket of pearl. Was it not 
an unstained morning, my own ! If I weep, it is with 
pleasure. But,’* she added with precipitation, “ weeping of 
any kind will not do for these eyelids of mine.” And draw- 
ing forth a tiny gold-framed pocket-mirror she perceived 
convincingly that it would not do. 

“ They will think it is for the absence of my husband,” 
she said, as only a woman can say it who deplores nothing 
so little as that. 

“ When does he return from Vienna ? ” Laura inquired in 
the fallen voice of her thoughtfulness. 

“ I receive two couriers a week ; I know not any more, 
my Laura. I believe he is pushing some connubial com- 
plaint against me at the Court. We have been married 
seventeen months. I submitted to the marriage because I 
could get no proper freedom without, and now I am expected 
to abstain from the very thing I sacrificed myself to get ! 
Can he hear that in Vienna ? ” She snapped her fingers. 
“ If not, let him come and behold it in Milan. Besides, he 
is harmless. The Archduchess is all ears for the very man 
of whom he is jealous. This is my reply: You told me to 
marry : I obeyed. My heart’s in the earth, and I must have 
distractions. My present distraction is De Pyrmont, a good 
Catholic and a good Austrian soldier, though a Frenchman. 
I grieve to say — it’s horrible — that it sometimes tickles me 
when I reflect that De Pyrmont is keen with the sword. 
But remember, Laura, it was not until after our marriage 
my husband told me he could have saved Giacomo by the 
lifting of a finger. Away with the man ! — if it amuses me 
to punish him, I do so.” 

The duchess kissed Laura’s cheek, and continued : — 

“How to the point where we stand enemies! I am for 


122 


VITTORIA 


Austria, you are for Italy. Good. But I am always for 
Laura. So, there’s a river between us and a bridge across 
it. My darling, do you know that we are much too strong 
for you, if you mean anything serious to-morrow night ? ” 

“ Are you ? ” Laura said calmly. 

“ I know, you see, that something is meant to happen 
to-morrow night.” 

Laura said, “ Do you ? ” 

“We have positive evidence of it. More than that : Your 
Yittoria — but do you care to have her warned ? She will 
certainly find herself in a pitfall if she insists on carrying 
out her design. * Tell me, do you care to have her warned 
and shielded ? A year of fortress-life is not agreeable, is 
not beneficial for the voice. Speakj my Laura.” 

Laura looked up in the face of her friend mildly with her 
large dark eyes, replying, “Do you think of sending Major 
de Pyrmont to her to warn her ? ” 

“Are you not wicked?” cried the duchess, feeling that 
she blushed, and that Laura had thrown her off the straight 
road of her interrogation. “ But, play cards with open hands, 
my darling, to-night. Look : — She is in danger. I know 
it; so do you. She will be imprisoned perhaps before she 
steps on the boards — who knows? Now, I — are not my 
very dreams all sworn in a regiment to serve my Laura ? — 
I have a scheme. Truth, it is hardly mine. It belongs to 
the Greek, the signor Antonio-Pericles Agriolopoulos. It 
is simply ” — the duchess dropped her voice out of Beppo’s 
hearing — “a scheme to rescue her : speed her away to my 
chateau near Meran in Tyrol.” ‘ Tyrol 9 was heard by Beppo. 
In his frenzy at the loss of the context he indulged in a 
yawn, and a grimace, and a dance of disgust all in one ; 
which lost him the next sentence likewise. “There we 
purpose keeping her till all is quiet and her revolutionary 
fever has passed. Have you heard of this signor Antonio ? 
He could buy up the kingdom of Greece, all Tyrol, half 
Lombardy. The man has a passion for your Vittoria ; for 
her voice solely, I believe. He is considered, no doubt truly, 
a great connoisseur. He could have a passion for nothing 
else, or alas ! ” (the duchess shook her head with doleful 
drollery) “would he insist on written securities and mort- 
gages of my private property when he lends me money? 


THE PLOT OF THE SIGNOR ANTONIO 


123 


How different the world is from the romances, my Lanra ! 
But for De Pyrmont, I might fancy my smile was really 
incapable of ransoming an empire ; I mean an emperor. 
Speak ; the man is waiting to come ; shall I summon him ? ” 

Laura gave an acquiescent nod. 

By this time Beppo had taken root to the floor. “ I am 
in the best place after all,” he said, thinking of the duties 
of his service. He was perfectly well acquainted with the 
features of the signor Antonio. He knew that Luigi was the 
signor Antonio’s spy upon Yittoria, and that no personal 
harm was intended toward his mistress ; but Beppo’s heart 
was in the revolt of which Yittoria was to give the signal ; 
so, without a touch of animosity, determined to thwart him, 
Beppo waited to hear the signor Antonio’s scheme. 

The Greek was- introduced by Aennchen. She glanced at 
the signora’s lap, and seeing her still without her fan, her 
eye shot slyly up with her shining temple, inspecting the 
narrow opening in the curtain furtively. A short hush of 
preluding ceremonies passed. 

Presently Beppo heard them speaking; he was aghast 
to find that he had no comprehension of what they were 
uttering. “ Oh, accursed French dialect ! ” he groaned ; 
discovering the talk to be in that tongue. The signor 
Antonio warmed rapidly from the frigid politeness of his 
introductory manner. A consummate acquaintance with 
French was required to understand him. He held out the 
fingers of one hand in regimental order, and with the others, 
which alternately screwed his moustache from its constitu- 
tional droop over the corners of his mouth, he touched the 
uplifted digits one by one, buzzing over them, flashing his 
white eyes, and shrugging in a way sufficient to madden 
a surreptitious listener who was aware that a wealth of 
meaning escaped him and mocked at him. At times the 
signor Antonio pitched a note compounded half of cursing, 
half of crying, it seemed : both pathetic and objurgative, as 
if he whimpered anathemas and had inexpressible bitter 
things in his mind. But there was a remedy ! He displayed 
the specific on a third finger. It was there. This being 
done (number three on the fingers), matters might still be 
well. So much his electric French and gesticulations plainly 
asserted. Beppo strained all his attention for names, in 


124 


VITTORIA 


despair at the riddle of the signs. Names were pillars of 
light in the dark unintelligible waste. The signora put a 
question. It was replied to with the name of the maestro 
Rocco Ricci. Following that, the signor Antonio accompa- 
nied his voluble delivery with pantomimic action which 
seemed to indicate the shutting of a door and an instantane- 
ous galloping of horses — a flight into air, any whither. He 
whipped the visionary steeds with enthusiastic glee, and ap- 
peared to be off skyward like a mad poet, when the signora 
again put a question, and at once he struck his hand flat 
across his mouth, and sat postured to answer what she 
pleased with a glare of polite vexation. She spoke; he 
echoed her, and the duchess took up the same phrase. Beppo 
was assisted by the triangular recurrence of the words and 
their partial relationship to Italian to interpret them : “ This 
night. 7 ’ Then the signora questioned further. The Greek 
replied : “ Mademoiselle Irma di Karski . 77 

“ La Lazzeruola , 77 she said. 

The signor Antonio flashed a bit of sarcastic mimicry, as 
if acquiescing in the justice of the opprobrious term from 
the high point of view : but mademoiselle might pass, — she 
was good enough for the public. 

Beppo heard and saw no more. A tug from behind re- 
called him to his situation. He put out his arms and 
gathered Aennchen all dark in them : and first kissing her 
so heartily as to set her trembling on the verge of a betrayal, 
before she could collect her wits he struck the fan down the 
pretty hollow of her back, between her shoulder-blades, and 
bounded away. It was not his intention to rush into the 
embrace of Jacob Baumwalder Feckelwitz, but that peram- 
bulating chasseur received him in a semi-darkness where all 
were shadows, and exclaimed, “ Aennchen ! 77 Beppo gave 
an endearing tenderness to the few words of German known 
to him : “ Gott — schaf — donner — dammer ! 77 and slipped 
from the hold of the astonished J acob, sheer under his arm- 
pit. He was soon in the street, excited he knew not by 
what, or for what object. He shuffled the names he remem- 
bered to have just heard — ‘ Rocco Ricci , 7 and ‘ la Lazzeruola . 7 
Why did the name of la Lazzeruola come in advance of la 
Vittoria ? And what was the thing meant by “ this night , 77 
which all three had uttered as in an agreement ? — ay ! and 


AT THE MAESTRO’S DOOR 125 

the Tyrol! The Tyrol — this night — Kocco Ricci — la 
Lazzeruola ! 

Beppo’s legs were carrying him toward the house of the 
maestro Rocco Ricci ere he had arrived at any mental 
decision upon these imminent mysteries. 


CHAPTER XIV 

AT THE MAESTRO’S DOOR 

The house of the maestro Rocco Ricci turned off the 
Borgo della Stella. Carlo Ammiani conducted Vittoria to 
the maestro’s door. They conversed very little on the way. 

“ You are a good swordsman ? ” she asked him abruptly. 

“I have as much skill as belongs to a perfect intimacy 
with the weapon,” he answered. 

“ Your father was a soldier, signor Carlo.” 

“ He was a General officer in what he believed to be the 
army of Italy. We used to fence together every day for 
two hours.” 

“ I love the fathers who do that,” said Vittoria. 

After such speaking Ammiani was not capable of the 
attempt to preach peace and safety to her. He postponed 
it to the next minute and the next. 

Vittoria’s spirit was in one of those angry knots which 
are half of the intellect, half of the will, and are much 
under the domination of one or other of the passions in the 
ascendant. She was resolved to go forward ; she felt justi- 
fied in going forward ; but the divine afflatus of enthusiasm 
buoyed her no longer, and she required the support of all 
that accuracy of insight and that senseless stubbornness 
which there might be in her nature. The feeling that it 
was she to whom it was given to lift the torch and plant 
the standard of Italy, had swept her as through the strings 
of a harp. Laura, and the horrible little bronze butterfly, 
and the ‘ Sei sospetta,’ now made her duty seem dry and 
miserably fleshless, imaging itself to her as if a skeleton had 
been told to arise and walk : — say, the thing obeys, and fills 


126 


YITTORIA 


a ghastly distension of men’s eyelids for a space, and again 
lies down, and men get their breath : but who is the rosier 
for it ? where is the glory of it ? what is the good ? This 
Milan, and Verona, Padua, Vicenza, Brescia, Venice, Florence, 
the whole Venetian, Tuscan, and Lombardic lands, down to 
far Sicily, and that Borne which always lay under the crown 
of a dead sunset in her idea — they too might rise ; but she 
thought of them as skeletons likewise. Even the shadowy 
vision of Italy Free had no bloom on it, and stood fronting 
the blown trumpets of resurrection Lazarus-like. 

At these moments young hearts, though full of sap and 
fire, cannot do common nursing labour for the little suck- 
ling sentiments and hopes, the dreams, the languors and the 
energies hanging about them for nourishment. Vittoria’s 
horizon was within five feet of her. She saw neither splen- 
did earth nor ancient heaven ; nothing save a breach to be 
stepped over in defiance of foes and (what was harder to 
brave) of friends. Some wayward activity of old associa- 
tions set her humming a quaint English tune, by which she 
was brought to her consciousness. 

“ Dear friend,” she said, becoming aware that there might 
be a more troubled depth in Ammiani’s absence of speech 
than in her own. 

“ Yes ? ” said he, quickly, as for a sentence to follow. 
None came, and he continued, “ The signora Laura is also 
your friend.” 

She rejoined coldly, “ I am not thinking of her.” 

Vittoria had tried to utter what might be a word of com- 
fort for him, and she found she had not a thought or an 
emotion. Here she differed from Laura, who, if the mood 
to heal a favourite’s little sore at any season came upon her, 
would shower out lively tendernesses and all cajoleries pos- 
sible to the tongue of woman. Yet the irritation of action 
narrowed Laura more than it did Vittoria ; fevered her and 
distracted her sympathies. Being herself a plaything at 
the time, she could easily play a part for others. Vittoria 
had not grown, probably never would grow, to be so plastic 
off the stage. She was stringing her hand to strike a blow 
as men strike, and women when they do that cannot be 
quite feminine. 

“ How dull the streets are,” she remarked. 


AT THE MAESTRO’S DOOR 


127 


“ They are, just now,” said Ammiani, thinking of them on 
the night to come convulsed with strife, and of her, tossed 
perhaps like a weed along the torrent of bloody deluge 
waters. Her step was so firm, her face so assured, that he 
could not fancy she realized any prospect of the sort, and 
it filled him with pity and a wretched quailing. 

If I speak now I shall be talking like a coward, he said 
to himself : and he was happily too prudent to talk to her in 
that strain. So he said nothing of peace and safety. She 
was almost at liberty to believe that he approved the wis- 
dom of her resolution. At the maestro’s door she thanked 
him for his escort, and begged for it further within an hour. 
“ And do bring me some chocolate.” She struck her teeth 
together champing in a pretty hunger for it. “ I have no 
chocolate in my pocket, and I hardly know myself.” 

“ What will your signor Antonio say ? ” 

Vittoria filliped her fingers. “His rule is over, and he 
is my slave : I am not his. I will not eat much ; but some 
— some I must have.” 

Ammiani laughed and promised to obtain it. “ That is, 
if there’s any to be had.” 

“ Break open doors to get it for me,” she said, stamping 
with fun to inspirit him. 

Ho sooner was she standing alone, than her elbow was 
gently plucked at on the other side : a voice was sibilating : 
“ S-s-signorina.” She allowed herself to be drawn out of 
the light of the open doorway, having no suspicion and no 
fear. “ Signorina, here is chocolate.” She beheld two hands 
in cup-shape, surcharged with packets of Turin chocolate. 

“ Luigi, it is you ? ” 

The Motterone spy screwed his eyelids to an expression 
of the shrewdest secresy. 

“ Hist ! signorina. Take some. You shall have all, but 
wait : — by-and-by. Aha ! you look at my eyes as you did 
on the Motterone, because one of them takes the shoulder- 
view ; but, the truth is, my father was a contrabandist, and 
had his eye in his ear when the frontier guard sent a bullet 
through his back, cotton-bags and cutleries, and all ! I inherit 
from him, and have been wry-eyed ever since. How does 
that touch a man’s honesty, signorina ? Hot at all. Don’t 
even suspect that you won’t appreciate Luigi by-and-by. So, 


128 


VITTORIA 


you won’t ask me a word, signorina, but up you go to the 
maestro : — signorina, I swear I am your faithful servant : — 
up to the maestro, and down first. Come down first : not 
last : — first. Let the other one come down after you ; and 
you come down first. Leave her behind, la Lazzeruola ; and 
here,” Luigi displayed a black veil, the common head-dress 
of the Milanese women, and twisted his fingers round and 
round on his forehead to personate the horns of the veil ; 
“ take it, signorina ; you know how to wear it. Luigi and 
the saints watch over you.” 

Vittoria found herself left in possession of the veil and 
a packet of chocolate. 

“ If I am watched over by the saints and Luigi ! ” she 
thought, and bit at the chocolate. 

When the door had closed upon her, Luigi resumed his 
station near it, warily casting his glances along the house- 
fronts, and moving his springy little legs like a heath-cock 
alert. They carried him sharp to an opposite corner of the 
street at a noise of some one running exposed to all eyes 
right down the middle of the road, straight to the house : in 
which foolish person he discerned Beppo, all of whose pro- 
ceedings Luigi observed and commented on from the safe 
obscurity under eaves and starlight, while Beppo was in the 
light of the lamps. “ You thunder at the door, my Beppo. 
You are a fire-balloon : you are going to burn yourself up 
with what you carry. You think you can do something, 
because you read books and frequent the talking theatres — 
fourteen syllables to a word. Mother of heaven ! will you 
never learn anything from natural intelligence ? There you 
are, in at the door. And now you will disturb the signorina, 
and you will do nothing but make la Lazzeruola’ s ears lively. 
Bounce ! you are up the stairs. Bounce ! you are on the 
landing. Thrum ! you drum at the door, and they are sing- 
ing ; they don’t hear you. And now you’re meek as a mouse. 
That’s it — if you don’t hit the mark when you go like a 
bullet, you’re stupid as lead. And they call you a clever 
fellow ! Luigi’s day is to come. When all have paid him 
all round, they will acknowledge Luigi’s worth. You are 
honest enough, my Beppo; but you might as well be a 
countryman. You are the signorina’s servant, but I know 
the turnings, said the rat to the cavaliero weazel.” 


AT THE MAESTRO’S DOOR 


129 


In a few minutes Beppo stepped from the house, and 
flung himself with his back against the lintel of the doorway. 

“That looks like determination to stop on guard,” said 
Luigi. 

He knew the exact feeling expressed by it, when one has 
come violently on an errand and has done no good. 

“A flea, my feathery lad, will set you flying again.” 

As it was imperative in Luigi’s schemes that Beppo should 
be set flying again, he slipped away stealthily, and sped fast 
into the neighbouring Corso, where a light English closed 
carriage, drawn by a pair of the island horses, moved at a 
slow pace. Two men were on the driver’s seat, one of whom 
Luigi hailed to come down : then he laid a strip of paper on 
his knee, and after thumping on the side of his nose to get a 
notion of English-Italian, he wrote with a pencil, dancing 
upon one leg all the while for a balance : — 

“Come, Beppo, daughter sake, now, at once, immediate, 
Beppo, signor.” 

“That’s to the very extremity how the little signora 
Inglese would write,” said Luigi ; yet cogitating profoundly 
in a dubitative twinkle of a second as to whether it might 
not be the English habit to wind up a hasty missive with an 
expediting oath. He had heard the oath of emphasis in that 
island : but he decided to let it go as it stood. The man he 
had summoned was directed to take it straightway and 
deliver it to one who would be found at the house-door of 
the maestro Bocco Bicci : “ Thus, like a drunken sentinel,” 
said Luigi, folding his arms, crossing his legs, and leaning 
back. “Forward, Matteo, my cherub.” 

“ All goes right ? ” the coachman addressed Luigi. 

“ As honey, as butter, as a mulberry leaf with a score of 
worms on it! The wine and the bread and the cream- 
cheeses are inside, my dainty one, are they ? She must not 
starve, nor must I. Are our hampers fastened outside ? 
Good. We shall be among the Germans in a day and a night. 
I’ve got the route, and I pronounce the name of the chateau 
very perfectly — ‘ Schloss Sonnenberg.’ Do that if you can.” 

The unpractised Italian coachman declined to attempt it. 
He and Luigi compared time by their watches. In three- 


180 


VITTORIA 


quarters of an hour he was to be within hail of the maestro’s 
house. Thither Luigi quietly returned. 

Beppo’s place there was vacant. 

“ That’s better than a draught of Asti,” said Luigi. 

The lighted windows of the maestro’s house, and the 
piano striking corrective notes, assured him that the special 
rehearsal was still going on ; and as he might now calculate 
on two or three minutes to spare, he threw back his coat- 
collar, lifted his head, and distended his chest, apparently to 
chime in with the singing, but simply to listen to it. For 
him, it was imperative that he should act the thing, in order 
to apprehend and appreciate it. 

A hurried footing told of the approach of one whom he 
expected. 

“ Luigi ! ” 

“Here, padrone.” 

“ You have the chocolate ? ” 

“ Signor Antonio, I have deposited it in the carriage.” 

“ She is in up there ? ” 

“ I beheld her entering.” 

“ Good ; that is fixed fact.” The signor Antonio drove at 
his moustache right and left. “I give you, see, Italian 
money and German money : German money in paper ; and a 
paper writen out by me to explain the value of the German 
paper-money. Silence, engine that you are, and not a man ! 
I am preventive of stupidity, I am ? Do I not know that, 
hein ? Am I in need of the acclamation of you, my friend ? 
On to the Chateau Sonnenberg : — drive on, drive on, and one 
who stops you, you drive over him : the gendarmes in white 
will peruse this paper, if there is any question, and will pass 
you and the cage, bowing ; you hear ? It is a pass ; the 
military ^>ass you when you show this paper. My good 
friend, Captain Weisspriess, on the staff of General Pierson, 
gives it, signed, and it is effectual. But you lose not the 
paper : put it away with the paper-money, quite safe. For 
yourself, this is half your pay — I give you napoleons ; ten. 
Count. And now — once at the Chateau Sonnenberg, I repeat, 
you leave her in charge of two persons, one a woman, at the 
gate, and then back — f rrrrr ” 

Antonio-Pericles smacked on the flat of his hand, and 
sounded a rapid course of wheels. 


AT THE MAESTRO’S DOOR 


131 


“ Back, and drop not a crumb upon tbe road. You have 
your map. It is, after Boveredo, straight up the Adige, by 
Bolzano .... say ‘Botzen.’” 

“ ‘ Botz,’ ” said Luigi, submissively. 

“ ‘ Botz ’ — ( Botz ’ — ass ! fool ! double idiot ! ( Botzen ! ’ ” 
Antonio-Pericles corrected him furiously, exclaiming to the 
sovereign skies, “ Though I pay for brains, can I get them ! 
No. But make a fiasco, Luigi, and not a second ten for 
you, my friend : and away, out of my sight, show yourself 
no more ! ” 

Luigi humbly said that he was not the instrument of a 
fiasco. 

Half spurning him, Antonio-Pericles snarled an end both 
to his advices and his prophetic disgust of the miserable 
tools furnished unto masterly minds upon this earth. He 
paced forward and back, murmuring in French, “ Mon Dieu ! 
was there ever such a folly as in the head of this girl ? It 
is her occasion : — Shall I be a Star ? Shall I be a Cinder ? 
It is to-morrow night her moment of Birth ! No; she pre- 
fers to be extinguished. For what? For this thing she 
calls her country. It is infamous. Yes, vile little cheat ! 
But, do you know Antonio-Pericles ? Not yet. I will 
nourish you, I will imprison you : I will have you tortured 
by love, by the very devil of love, by the red-hot pincers of 
love, till you scream a music, and die to melt him with your 
voice, and kick your country to the gutter, and know your 
Italy for a birthplace and a cradle of Song, and no more, 
and enough ! Bah ! ” 

Having thus delivered himself of the effervescence of his 
internal agitation, he turned sharply round upon Luigi, with 
a military stamp of the foot and shout of the man’s name. 

"It is love she wants,” Antonio-Pericles resumed his 
savage soliloquy. “ She wants to be kindled on fire. Too 
much Government of brain; not sufficient Insurrection of 
heart ! There it is. There it lies. But, little fool ! you 
shall find people with arms and shots and cannon running 
all up and down your body, firing and crying out ‘ Victory 
for Love ! ’ till you are beaten, till you gasp ‘ Love ! love ! 
love ! ’ and then comes a beatific — oh ! a heaven and a hell to 
your voice. I will pay,” the excited connoisseur pursued 
more deliberately — "I will pay half my fortune to bring this 


132 


VITTORIA 


about. I am fortified, for I know such a voice was sent to be 
sublime.” He exclaimed in an ecstasy : “ It opens the skies ! ” 
and immediately appended : “ It is destined to suffocate the 
theatres ! ” 

Pausing as before a splendid vision : “ Money — let it go 
like dust ! I have an object. Sandra Belloni — you stupid 
Yittoria Campa ! — I have millions and the whole Austrian 
Government to back me, and you to be wilful, little rebel ! 
I could laugh. It is only Love you want. Your voice is 
now in a marble chamber. I will put it in a palace of cedar- 
wood. This Ammiani I let visit you in the hope that he 
would touch you. Bah ! he is a patriot — not a man ! He 
cannot make you wince and pine, and be cold and be hot, 
and — Bah ! I give a chance to some one else who is not a 
patriot. He has done mischief with the inflammable little 
Anna von Lenkenstein — I know it. Your proper lovers, you 
women, are the broad, the business lovers, and Weisspriess 
is your man.” 

Antonio-Pericles glanced up at the maestro’s windows. 
“ Hark ! it is her voice,” he said, and drew up his clenched 
fists with rage, as if pumping. “ Cold as ice ! Not a flaw. 
She is a lantern with no light in it — crystal, if you like. 
Hark now at Irma, the stork-neck. Aie ! what a long way 
it is from your throat to your head, mademoiselle Irma! 
You were reared upon lemons. The split hair of your mural 
crown is not thinner than that voice of yours. It is a 
mockery to hear you; but you are good enough for the 
people, my dear, and you do work, running up and down 
that ladder of wires between your throat and your head ; — 
you work, it is true, you puss ! sleek as a puss, bony as a 
puss, musical as a puss. But you are good enough for the 
people. Hola ! ” 

This exclamation was addressed to a cavalier who was dis- 
mounting from his horse about fifty yards down the street, 
and who, giving the reins to a mounted servant, advanced to 
meet the signor Antonio. 

“It is you, Herr Captain von Weisspriess ! ” 

“ When he makes an appointment you see him, as a rule, 
my dear Pericles,” returned the captain. 

“You are out of uniform — good. We will go up. Be- 
member, you are a connoisseur, from Bonn — from Berlin — 


AT THE MAESTRO’S DOOR 


133 


from Leipsic : not of the K.K. army ! Abjure it, or you 
make no way with this mad thing. You shall see her and 
hear her, and judge if she is worth your visit to Schloss 
Sonnenberg and a short siege. Good : we go aloft. You 
bow to the maestro respectfully twice, as in duty ; then a 
third time, as from a whisper of your soul. Yanitas, vani- 
tatis ! You speak of the ut de poitrine. You remark : ‘ Al- 

brechtsberger has said ,’ and you slap your head and 

stop. They think, ‘ He is polite, and will not quote a Ger- 
man authority to us : ’ and they think, ‘ He will not continue 
his quotation; in truth, he scornfully considers it super- 
fluous to talk of counterpoint to us poor Italians.’ Your 
Christian name is J ohann ? — you are Herr J ohannes. Look 
at her well. I shall not expose you longer than ten minutes 
to their observation. Frown meditative ; the elbow propped 
and two fingers in the left cheek ; and walk into the room 
with a stoop : touch a note of the piano, leaning your ear to 
it as in detection of five-fifteenths of a shade of discord. 
Frown in trouble as of a tooth. So, when you smile, it is 
immense praise to them, and easy for you.” 

The names of the signor Antonio-Pericles and Herr 
Johannes were taken up to the maestro. 

Tormented with curiosity, Luigi saw them enter the 
house. The face and the martial or sanguinary reputation 
of Captain Weisspriess were not unknown to him. “ What 
has he to do with this affair ? ” thought Luigi, and sauntered 
down to the captain’s servant, who accepted a cigar from him, 
but was rendered incorruptible by ignorance of his language. 
He observed that the horses were fresh, and were furnished 
with saddle-bags as for an expedition. What expedition ? 
To serve as escort to the carriage ? — a nonsensical idea. 
But the discovery that an idea is nonsensical is not a satis- 
factory solution of a difficulty. Luigi squatted on his 
haunches beside the doorstep, a little under one of the 
lower windows of Bocco Bicci’s house. Earlier than he 
expected, the captain and signor Antonio came out, and as 
soon as the door had closed behind them, the captain ex- 
claimed, “I give you my hand on it, my brave Pericles. 
You have done me many services, but this is finest of all. 
She’s superb. She’s a nice little wild woman to tame. I 
shall go to the Sonnenberg immediately. I have only to 


134 


YITTORTA 


tell General Pierson that his nephew is to be prevented 
from playing the fool, and I get leave at once, if there’s no 
active work.” 

“ His nephew, Lieutenant Pierson, or Pole — hein ? ” inter- 
posed the Greek. 

“ That’s the man. He’s on the Marshal’s staff. He’s 
engaged to the Countess Lena von Lenkenstein. She has 
fire enough, my Pericles.” 

“ The Countess Anna, you say ? ” The Greek stretched 
forward his ear, and was never so near getting it vigorously 
cuffed. 

“ Deafness is an unpardonable offence, my dear Pericles.” 

Antonio-Pericles sniffed, and assented, “ It is the stupidity 
of the ear.” 

“ I said, the Countess Lena.” 

“Yon Lenkenstein; but I choose to be further deaf.” 

“ To the devil, sir. Do you pretend to be angry ? ” cried 
Weisspriess. 

“ The devil, sir, with your recommendation, is too black 
for me to visit him,” Antonio-Pericles rejoined. 

“ By heaven, Pericles, for less than what you allow your- 
self to say, I’ve sent men to him howling ! ” 

They faced one another, pulling at their mustachios. 
Weisspriess laughed. 

“You’re not a fighting man, Pericles.” 

The Greek nodded affably. “ One is in my way, I have 
him put out of my way. It is easiest.” 

“ Ah! easiest, is it?” Captain Weisspriess ‘frowned medi- 
tative’ over this remarkable statement of a system. “Well, 
it certainly saves trouble. Besides, my good Pericles, none 
but an ass would quarrel with you. I was observing that 
General Pierson wants his nephew to marry the Countess 
Lena immediately ; and if, as you tell me, this girl Belloni, 
who is called la Yittoria — the precious little woman! — 
has such power over him, it’s quite as well, from the Gen- 
eral’s point of view, that she should be out of the way at 
Sonnenberg. I have my footing at the Duchess of Graatli’s. 
I believe she hopes that I shall some day challenge and kill 
her husband; and as I am supposed to have saved Major de 
Pyrmont’s life, I am also an object of present gratitude. Do 
you imagine that your little brown-eyed Belloni scented one 
of her enemies in me ? ” 


AT THE MAESTRO’S DOOR 135 

“ I know nothing of imagination,” the signor Antonio 
observed frigidly. 

“ Till we meet ! ” Captain Weisspriess kissed his fingers, 
half as up toward the windows, and half to the Greek. 
“ Save me from having to teach love to your Irma ! ” 

He ran to join his servant. 

Luigi had heard much of the conversation, as well as the 
last sentence. 

“ It shall be to la Irma if it is to anybody,” Luigi muttered. 

“Let Weisspriess — he will not awake love in her — let 
him kindle hate, it will do,” said the signor Antonio. “ She 
has seen him, and if he meets her on the route to Meran, she 
will think it her fascination.” 

Looking at his watch and at the lighted windows, he 
repeated his special injunctions to Luigi. “ It is near the 
time. I go to sleep. I am getting old : I grow nervous. 
Ten — twenty in addition, you shall have, if all is done 
right. Your weekly pay runs on. Twenty — you shall 
have thirty ! Thirty napoleons additional ! ” 

Ten fingers were flashed thrice. 

Luigi gave a jump. “Padrone, they are mine.” 

“ Animal, that shake your belly-bag and brain-box, stand ! ” 
cried the Greek, who desired to see Luigi standing firm that 
he might inspire himself with confidence in his integrity. 
When Luigi’s posture had satisfied him, he turned and went 
off at great strides. 

“ He does pay,” Luigi reflected, seeing that immense vir- 
tue in his patron. “ Yes, he pays ; but what is he about ? 
It is this question for me — ‘ Do I serve my hand ? or, Do I 
serve my heart ? ’ My hand takes the money, and it is not 
German money. My heart gives the affection, and the signo- 
rina has my heart. She reached me that cigarette on the 
Motterone like the Madonna : it is never to be forgotten ! I 
serve my heart ! Now, Beppo, you may come ; come quick 
for her. I see the carriage, and there are three stout fellows 
in it who could trip and muzzle you at a signal from me 
before you could count the letters of your father’s baptismal 
name. Oh ! but if the signorina disobeys me and comes out 
last! — the signor Antonio will ask the maestro, who will 
say, ‘ Yes, la Yittoria was here with me last of the two ; ’ 
and I lose my ten, my twenty, my thirty napoleons.” 


186 


VITTORIA 


Luigi’s chest expanded largely with a melancholy draught 
of air. 

The carriage meantime had become visible at the head of 
the street, where it remained within hearing of a whistle. 
One of the Milanese hired vehicles drove up to the maestro’s 
door shortly after, and Luigi cursed it. His worst fears for 
the future of the thirty napoleons were confirmed ; the door 
opened and the maestro Rocco Ricci, bare-headed and in his 
black-silk dressing-gown, led out Irma di Karski, by some 
called rival to la Vittoria; a tall Slavic damsel, whose laugh- 
ter was not soft and smooth, whose cheeks were bright, and 
whose eyes were deep in the head and dull. But she had 
vivacity both of lips and shoulders. The shoulders were 
bony ; the lips were sharp and red, like winter-berries in the 
morning-rime. Freshness was not absent from her aspect. 
The critical objection was that it seemed a plastered fresh- 
ness and not true bloom; or rather it was a savage and a 
hard, not a sweet freshness. Hence perhaps the name which 
distinguished her — -la Lazzeruola (crab-apple). It was a 
freshness that did not invite the bite ; sour to Italian taste. 

She was apparently in vast delight. “ There will be a 
perfect inundation to-morrow night from Prague and Vienna 
to see me even in so miserable a part as Michiella,” she said. 
“ Here I am supposed to be a beginner ; I am no debutante 
there.” 

“ I can believe it, I can believe it,” responded Rocco, bow- 
ing for her speedy departure. 

“ You are not satisfied with my singing of Michiella’s 
score! Now, tell me, kind, good, harsh old master! you 
think that Miss Vittoria would sing it better. So do I. 
And I can sing another part better. You do not know my 
capacities.” 

“ I am sure there is nothing you would not attempt,” said 
Rocco, bowing resignedly. 

“ There never was question of my courage.” 

“ Yes, but courage, courage ! away with your courage ! ” 
Rocco was spurred by his personal grievances against her in 
a manner to make him forget his desire to be rid of her. 
“ Your courage sets you flying at once at every fioritura and 
bravura passage, to subdue, not to learn : not to accomplish, 
but to conquer it. And the ability, let me say, is not in 


AT THE MAESTRO’S DOOR 


137 


proportion to the courage, which is probably too great to be 
easily equalled : but you have the opportunity to make your 
part celebrated to-morrow night, if, as you tell me, the house 
is to be packed with Viennese, and, signorina, you let your 
hair down.” 

The hair of Irma di Karski was of singular beauty, and 
so dear to her that the allusion to the triumphant feature of 
her person passed off Roceo’s irony in sugar. 

“ Addio ! I shall astonish you before many hours have 
gone by,” she said; and this time they bowed together, and 
the maestro tripped back hurriedly, and shut his door. 

Luigi’s astonishment eclipsed his chagrin when he beheld 
the lady step from her place, bidding the driver move away 
as if he carried a freight, and indicating a position for him 
at the end of the street, with an imperative sway and deflec- 
tion of her hand. Luigi heard the clear thin sound of a 
key dropped to her from one of the upper windows. She 
was quick to seize it; the door opened stealthily to her, 
and she passed out of sight without casting a look behind. 
“That’s a woman going to discover a secret, if she can,” 
remarked the observer; meaning, that he considered the 
sex bad Generals, save when they have occasion to preserve 
themselves secret; then they look behind them carefully 
enough. The situation was one of stringent torment to a 
professional and natural spy. Luigi lost count of minutes 
in his irritation at the mystery, which he took as a personal 
offence. Some suspicion or wariness existed in the lighted 
room, for the maestro threw up a window, and inspected 
the street to right and left. Apparently satisfied he with- 
drew his head, and the window was closed. 

In a little while Vittoria’s voice rose audible out of the 
stillness, though she restrained its volume. 

Its effect upon Luigi was to make him protest to her, 
whimpering with pathos as if • she heard and must be 
melted: “Signorina! signorina, most dear! for charity 
sake! I am one of you; I am a patriot. Every man to 
his trade, but my heart is all with you.” And so on, louder 
by fits, in a running murmur, like one having his con- 
science ransacked, from which he was diverted by a side- 
thought of Irma di Karski, la Lazzeruola, listening, taking 
poison in at her ears ; for Luigi had no hesitation in ascrib- 


138 


YITTORIA 


ing her behaviour to jealousy. “Does not that note drive 
through your bosom, excellent lady? I can fancy the trem- 
ble going all down your legs. You are poisoned with honey. 
How you hate it ! If you only had a dagger ! ” 

Yittoria sang but for a short space. Simultaneously with 
the cessation of her song Ammiani reached the door, but 
had scarcely taken his stand there when, catching sight of 
Luigi, he crossed the street, and recognizing him, ques- 
tioned him sternly as to his business opposite the maestro’s 
house. Luigi pointed to a female figure emerging. “ See ! 
take her home,” he said. Ammiani released him and 
crossed back hurriedly, when, smiting his forehead, Luigi 
cried in despair, “Thirty napoleons and my professional 
reputation lost! ” He blew a whistle; the carriage dashed 
down from the head of the street. While Ammiani was 
following the swiftly -stepping figure in wonderment (know- 
ing it could not be Yittoria, yet supposing it must be, with- 
out any clear aim of his wits), the carriage drew up a little 
in advance of her ; three men — men of bulk and sinew — 
jumped from it; one threw himself upon Ammiani, the 
others grasped the affrighted lady, tightening a veil over 
her face, and the carriage-door shut sharp on her. Ammi- 
ani’s assailant then fell away: Luigi flung himself on the 
box and shouted, “The signorina is behind you!” And 
Ammiani beheld Yittoria standing in alarm, too joyful to 
know that it was she. In the spasm of joy he kissed her 
hands. Before they could intercommunicate intelligibly 
the carriage was out of their sight, going at a gallop along 
the eastern strada of the circumvallation of the city. 


CHAPTER XV 

AMMIANI THROUGH THE MIDNIGHT 

Ammiani hurried Yittoria out of the street to make safety 
sure. “Home,” she said, ashamed of her excitement, and 
not daring to speak more words, lest the heart in her throat 
should betray itself. He saw what the fright had done for 
her. Perhaps also he guessed that she was trying to con- 


AMMIANI THROUGH THE MIDNIGHT 


139 


ceal her fancied cowardice from him. “ I have kissed her 
hands,” he thought, and the memory of it was a song of 
tenderness in his blood by the way. 

Vittoria’s dwelling-place was near the Duomo, in a nar- 
row thoroughfare leading from the Duomo to the Piazza of 
La Scala, where a confectioner of local fame conferred upon 
the happier members of the population most piquant boc- 
coni and tartlets, and offered by placard to give an emotion 
to the nobility, the literati, and the epicures of Milan, and 
to all foreigners, if the aforesaid would adventure upon a 
trial of his art. Meanwhile he let lodgings. It was in the 
house of this famous confectioner Zotti that Yittoria and 
her mother had lived after leaving England for Italy. As 
Vittoria came under the fretted shadow of the cathedral, 
she perceived her mother standing with Zotti at the house- 
door, though the night was far advanced. She laughed, and 
walked less hurriedly. Ammiani now asked her if she had 
been alarmed. “ Not alarmed,” she said, “ but a little more 
nervous than I thought I should be.” 

He was spared from putting any further question by her 
telling him that Luigi, the Motterone spy, had in all proba- 
bility done her a service in turning one or other of the 
machinations of the signor Antonio. “My madman,” she 
called this latter. “He has got his Irma instead of me. 
We shall have to supply her place to-morrow; she is travel- 
ling rapidly, and on my behalf ! I think, signor Carlo, you 
would do well by going to the maestro when you leave me, 
and telling him that Irma has been caught into the skies. 
Say, ‘Jealous that earth should possess such overpowering 
loveliness,’ or ‘Attracted in spite of themselves by that 
combination of genius and beauty which is found united 
nowhere but in Irma, the spirits of heaven determined to 
rob earth of her Lazzeruola.’ Only tell it to him seriously, 
for my dear Kocco will have to work with one of the singers 
all day, and I ought to be at hand by them to help her, if I 
dared stir out. What do you think? ” 

Ammiani pronounced his opinion that it would be perilous 
for her to go abroad. 

“ I shall in truth, I fear, have a difficulty in getting to 
La Scala unseen,” she said; “except that we are cunning 
people in our house. We not only practise singing and 


140 


YITTORIA 


invent wonderful confectionery, but we do conjuring 
tricks. We profess to be able to deceive anybody whom 
we please.” 

“Do the dupes enlist in a regiment?” said Ammiani, 
with an intonation that professed his readiness to serve as 
a recruit. His humour striking with hers, they smiled 
together in the bright fashion of young people who can 
lose themselves in a ray of fancy at any season. 

Yittoria heard her mother’s wailful voice. “ Twenty gnats 
in one,” she said. 

Ammiani whispered quickly to know whether she had 
decided for the morrow. She nodded, and ran up to her 
mother, who cried : — 

“ At this hour ! And Beppo has been here after you, and 
he told me I wrote for him, in Italian, when not a word can 
I put to paper: I wouldn’t! — and you are threatened by 
dreadful dangers, he declares. His behaviour was mad; 
they are all mad over in this country, I believe. I have 
put the last stitch to your dress. There is a letter or two 
upstairs for you. Always letters ! ” 

“My dear good Zotti,” Vittoria turned to the artist in 
condiments, “ you must insist upon my mother going to bed 
at her proper time when I am out.” 

“Signorina,” rejoined Zotti, a fat little round-headed 
man, with vivacious starting brown eyes, “ I have only to 
tell her to do a thing — I pull a dog by the collar ; be it 
said with reverence.” 

“However, I am very glad to see you both such good 
friends.” 

“ Yes, signorina, we are good friends till we quarrel again. 
I regret to observe to you that the respectable lady is incur- 
ably suspicious. Of me — Zotti! Mother of heaven ! ” 

“It is you that are suspicious of me, sir,” retorted 
madame. “Of me, of all persons! It’s ‘tell me this, tell 
me that,’ all day with you; and because I can’t answer, 
you are angry.” 

“Behold! the signora speaks English; we have quarrelled 
again,” said Zotti. 

“ My mother thinks him a perfect web of plots,” Yittoria 
explained the case between them, laughing, to Ammiani; 
“ and Zotti is persuaded that she is an inveterate schemer. 


AMMIANI THROUGH THE MIDNIGHT 141 

They are both entirely innocent, only they are both exces- 
sively timid. Out of that it grows.” 

The pair dramatized her outline on the instant : — 

“‘Did I not see him speak to an English lady, and he 
will not tell me a word about it, though she’s my own 
countrywoman? ’ ” 

“ ‘ Is it not true that she received two letters this after- 
noon, and still does she pretend to be ignorant of what is 
going on? ’ ” 

“Happily,” said Yittoria, “my mother is not a widow, 
or these quarrels might some day end in a fearful reconcili- 
ation.” 

“My child,” her mother whimpered, “you know what 
these autumn nights are in this country; as sure as you 
live, Emilia, you will catch cold, and then you’re like a 
shop with shutters up for the dead.” 

At the same time Zotti whispered : “ Signorina, I have 
kept the minestra hot for your supper; come in, come in. 
And, little things, little dainty bits ! — do you live in Zotti’ s 
house for nothing? Sweetest delicacies that make the 
tongue run a stream ! — just notions of a taste — the palate 
smacks and forgets ; the soul seizes and remembers ! ” 

“ Oh, such seductions ! ” V ittoria exclaimed. 

“It is,” Zotti pursued his idea, with fingers picturesquely 
twirling in a spider-like distension ; “ it is like the damned, 
and they have but a crumb of a chance of Paradise, and 
down swoops St. Peter and has them in the gates fast! 
You are worthy of all that a man can do for you, signo- 
rina. Let him study, let him work, let him invent, — you 
are worthy of all.” 

“ I hope I am not too hungry to discriminate ! Zotti : I 
see Monte Kosa.” 

“ Signorina, you are pleased to say so when you are fam- 
ishing. It is because ” the enthusiastic confectioner 

looked deep and oblique, as one who combined a remark- 
able subtlety of insight with profound reflection; “it is 
because the lighter you get the higher you mount; up like 
an eagle of the peaks! But we’ll give that hungry fellow 
a fall. A dish of hot minestra shoots him dead. Then, a 
tart of pistachios and chocolate and cream — and my head to 
him who shall reveal to me the flavouring ! ” 


142 


VITTORIA 


“ When I wake in the morning, I shall have lived a month 
or two in Arabia, Zotti. Tell me no more; I will come in,” 
said Vittoria. 

“ Then, signorina, a little crisp filbert-biscuit — a compo- 
sition! You crack it, and a surprise! And then, and then 
my dish ; Zotti’s dish, that is not yet christened. Signorina, 
let Italy rise first; ” the great inventor of the dish winked 
and nodded temperately. “ Let her rise. A battle or a treaty 
will do. I have two or three original conceptions, compo- 
sitions, that only wait for some brilliant feat of arms, or 
a diplomatic triumph, and I send them forth baptized.” 

Vittoria threw large eyes upon Ammiani, and set the 
underlids humorously quivering. She kissed her fingers : 
“ Addio ; a rivederla.” He bowed formally : he was startled 
to find the golden thread of their companionship cut with 
such cruel abruptness. But it was cut; the door had closed 
on her. The moment it had closed she passed into his 
imagination. By what charm had she allayed the fever of 
his anxiety? Her naturalness had perforce given him 
assurance that peace must surround one in whom it shone 
so steadily, and smiling at the thought of Zotti’ s repast and 
her twinkle of subdued humour, he walked away comforted; 
which, for a lover in the Season of peril means exalted, as 
in a sudden conflagration of the dry stock of his intelli- 
gence. “ She must have some great faith in her heart,” he 
thought, no longer attributing his exclusion from it to a 
lover’s rivalry, which will show that more than imagina- 
tion was on fire within him. For when the soul of a youth 
can be heated above common heat, the vices of passion 
shrivel up and aid the purer flame. It was well for Ammi- 
ani that he did perceive (dimly though it was perceived) 
the force of idealistic inspiration by which Vittoria was 
supported. He saw it at this one moment, and it struck 
a light to light him in many subsequent perplexities; it 
was something he had never seen before. He had read 
Tuscan poetry to her in old Agostino’s rooms; he had 
spoken of secret preparations for the revolt; he had de- 
claimed upon Italy, — the poetry was good though the 
declamation may have been bad, — but she had always been 
singularly irresponsive, with a practical turn for ciphers. 
A quick reckoning, a sharp display of figures in Italy’s 


AMMIANI THROUGH THE MIDNIGHT 


143 


cause, kindled her cheeks and took her breath. Ammiani 
now understood that there lay an unspoken depth in her, 
distinct from her visible nature. 

He had first an interview with Rocco Ricci, whom he 
prepared to replace Irma. 

His way was then to the office of his Journal, where he 
expected to be greeted by two members of the Polizia, who 
would desire him to march before the central bureau, and 
exhibit proofs of articles and the items of news for inspec- 
tion, for correction haply, and possibly for approval. There 
is a partial delight in the contemplated submission to an 
act of servitude for the last time. Ammiani stepped in 
with combative gaiety, but his stiff glance encountered 
no enemy. This astonished him. He turned back into 
the street and meditated. The Pope’s Mouth might, he 
thought, hold the key to the riddle. It is not always most 
comfortable for a conspirator to find himself unsuspected : 
he reads the blank significantly. It looked ill that the 
authorities should allow anything whatsoever to be printed 
on such a morrow : especially ill, if they were on the alert. 
The neighbourhood by the Pope’s Mouth was desolate under 
dark starlight. Ammiani got his fingers into the opening 
behind the rubbish of brick, and tore them on six teeth of 
a saw that had been fixed therein. Those teeth were as 
voluble to him as loud tongues. The Mouth was empty of 
any shred of paper. They meant that the enemy was ready 
to bite, and that the conspiracy had ceased to be active. 
He perceived that a stripped ivy-twig, with the leaves 
scattered around it, stretched at his feet. That was another 
and corroborative sign, clearer to him than printed capitals. 
The reading of it declared that the Revolt had collapsed. 
He wound and unwound his handkerchief about his fingers 
mechanically: great curses were in his throat. “ I would 
start for South America at dawn, but for her ! ” he said. 
The country of Bolivar still had its attractions for Italian 
youth. For a certain space Ammiani’s soul was black with 
passion. He was the son of that fiery Paolo Ammiani who 
had cast his glove at Eugene’s feet, and bade the viceroy 
deliver it to his French master. (The General was prepar- 
ing to break his sword on his knee when Eugene rushed up 
to him and kissed him.) Carlo was of this blood. English- 


144 


VITTORIA 


men will hardly forgive him for having tears in his eyes, 
but Italians follow the Greek classical prescription for the 
emotions, while we take example by the Roman. There 
is no sneer due from us. He sobbed. It seemed that a 
country was lost. 

Ammiani had moved away slowly : he was accidentally the 
witness of a curious scene. There came into the irregular 
triangle, and walking up to where the fruit-stalls stood by 
day, a woman and a man. The man was an Austrian sol- 
dier. It was an Italian woman by his side. The sight of 
the couple was just then like an incestuous horror to 
Ammiani. She led the soldier straight up to the Mouth, 
directing his hand to it, and, what was far more wonderful, 
directing it so that he drew forth a packet of papers from 
where Ammiani had found none. Ammiani could see the 
light of them in his hand. The Austrian snatched an 
embrace and ran. Ammiani was moving over to her to 
seize and denounce the traitress, when he beheld another 
figure like an apparition by her side ; but this one was not 
a whitecoat. Had it risen from the earth? It was earthy, 
for a cloud of dust was about it, and the woman gave a 
stifled scream. “Barto! Barto!” she cried, pressing upon 
her eyelids. A strong husky laugh came from him. He 
tapped her shoulder heartily, and his “Ha! ha!” rang in 
the night air. 

“You never trust me,” she whimpered from shaken 
nerves. 

He called her, “ Brave little woman ! rare girl ! ” 

“ But you never trust me ! ” 

“ Do I not lay traps to praise you? ” 

“You make a woman try to deceive you.” 

“ If she could ! If only she could ! ” 

Ammiani was up with them. 

“You are Barto Rizzo,” he spoke, half leaning over the 
man in his impetuosity. 

Barto stole a defensive rearward step. The thin light 
of dawn had in a moment divided the extreme starry dark- 
ness, and Ammiani, who knew his face, had not to ask 
a second time. It was scored by a recent sword-cut. 
He glanced at the woman : saw that she was handsome. 
It was enough; he knew she must be Barto’s wife, and, 


AMMIANI THROUGH THE MIDNIGHT 


145 


if not more cunning than Barto, his accomplice, his instru- 
ment, his slave. 

“Five minutes ago I would have sworn you were a 
traitress,” he said to her. 

She was expressionless, as if she had heard nothing; 
which fact, considering that she was very handsome, 
seemed remarkable to the young man. Youth will not 
believe that stupidity and beauty can go together. 

“ She is the favourite pupil of Bartolommeo Bizzo, signor 
Carlo Ammiani,” quoth Barto, having quite regained his 
composure. “ She is my pretty puppet-patriot. I am not 
in the habit of exhibiting her; but since you see her, there 
she is.” 

Barto had fallen into the Southern habit of assuming ease 
in quasi-rhetorical sentences, but with wary eyes over them. 
The peculiar, contracting, owl-like twinkle defied Ammiani’s 
efforts to penetrate his look ; so he took counsel of his anger, 
and spoke bluntly. 

“ She does your work? ” 

“ Much of it, signor Carlo : as the bullet does the work of 
the rifle.” 

“ Beast ! was it your wife who pinned the butterfly to the 
signorina Vittoria’s dress ? ” 

“ Signor Carlo Ammiani, you are the son of Paolo, the 
General : you call me beast ? I have dandled you in my 
arms, my little lad, while the bands played ‘ There's yet a 
heart in Italy ! ’ Do you remember it ? ” Barto sang out 
half-a-dozen bars. “ You call me beast ? Fm the one man 
in Milan who can sing you that.” 

“ Beast or man, devil or whatever you are ! ” cried 
Ammiani, feeling nevertheless oddly unnerved, “you have 
committed a shameful offence: you, or the woman, your 
wife, who serves you, as I see. You have thwarted the 
best of plots; you have dared to act in defiance of your 
Chief ” 

“ Eyes to him ! ” Barto interposed, touching over his eye- 
balls. 

“And you have thrown your accursed stupid suspicions 
on the signorina Vittoria. You are a mad fool. If I had 
the power, I would order you to be shot at five this morn- 
ing; and that’s the last rising of the light you should 


146 


VITTORIA 


behold. Why did you do it ? Don’t turn your hellish eyes 
in upon one another, but answer at once ! Why did you 
do it ? ” 

“The signorina Vittoria,” returned Barto — his articula- 
tion came forth serpent-like — “ she is not a spy, you think. 
She has been in England: I have been in England. She 
writes; I can read. She is a thing of whims. Shall she 
hold the goblet of Italy in her hand till it overflows ? She 
writes love-letters to an English whitecoat. I have read 
them. Who bids her write ? Her whim ! She warns her 
friends not to enter Milan. She — whose puppet is she? 
Hot yours ; not mine. She is the puppet of an English 
Austrian ! ” 

Barto drew back, for Ammiani was advancing. 

“ What is it you mean ? ” he cried. 

“ I mean,” said Ammiani, still moving on him, “ I mean 
to drag you first before Count Medole, and next before the 
signorina; and you shall abjure your slander in her pres- 
ence. After that I shall deal with you. Mark me ! I have 
you : I am swifter on foot, and I am stronger. Come quietly.” 

Barto smiled in grim contempt. 

“ Keep your foot fast on that stone, — you’re a prisoner,” 
he replied, and seeing Ammiani coming, “Het him, my sling- 
stone ! my serpent ! ” he signalled to his wife, who threw 
herself right round Ammiani in a tortuous twist hard as 
wire-rOpe. Stung with irritation, and a sense of disgrace 
and ridicule and pitifulness in one, Ammiani, after a struggle, 
ceased the attempt to disentwine her arms, and dragged 
her clinging to him. He was much struck by hearing her 
count deliberately, in her desperation, numbers from some- 
where about twenty to one hundred. One hundred was 
evidently the number she had to complete, for when she had 
reached it she threw her arms apart. Barto was out of 
sight. Ammiani waved her on to follow in his steps : he 
was sick of her presence, and had the sensations of a shame- 
faced boy whom a girl has kissed. She went without utter- 
ing a word. 

The dawn had now traversed the length of the streets, and 
thrown open the wide spaces of the city. Ammiani found 
himself singing, “ There's yet a heart in Italy ! ” but it was 
hardly the song of his own heart. He slept that night on a 


AMMIANI THROUGH THE MIDNIGHT 


147 


chair in the private room of his office, preferring not to go 
to his mother’s house. “ There’s yet a heart in Italy ! ” was 
on his lips when he awoke with scattered sensations, all of 
which collected in revulsion against the song. “ There’s a 
very poor heart in Italy ! ” he said, while getting his person 
into decent order ; “ it’s like the bell in the lunatic’s tower 
between Venice and the Lido: it beats now and then for 
meals : hangs like a carrion-lump in the vulture’s beak 
meanwhile ! ” 

These and some other similar sentiments, and a heat 
about the brows whenever he set them frowning over what 
Barto had communicated concerning an English Austrian, 
assured Ammiani that he had no proper command of him- 
self : or was, as the doctors would have told him, bilious. It 
seemed to him that he must have dreamed of meeting the 
dark and subtle Barto Bizzo overnight; on realizing that 
fact he could not realize how the man had escaped him, 
except that when he thought over it, he breathed deep and 
shook his shoulders. The mind will, as you may know, 
sometimes refuse to work when the sensations are shameful 
and astonished. He despatched a messenger with a ( good 
morrow’ to his mother, and then went to a fencing-saloon 
that was fitted up in the house of Count Medole, where, 
among two or three, there was the ordinary shrugging talk 
of the collapse of the projected outbreak, bitter to hear. 
Luciano Bomara came in, and Ammiani challenged him to 
small-sword and broadsword. Both being ireful to boiling 
point, and mad to strike at something, they attacked one 
another furiously, though they were dear friends, and the 
helmet-wires and the padding rattled and smoked to the 
thumps. For half-an-hour they held on to it, when, their 
blood being up, they flashed upon the men present, includ- 
ing the count, crying shame to them for letting a woman 
alone be faithful to her task that night. The blood forsook 
Count Medole’s cheeks, leaving its dead hue, as when blot- 
ting-paper is laid on running ink. He deliberately took a 
pair of foils, and offering the handle of one to Ammiani, 
broke the button off the end of his own, and stood to face 
an adversary. Ammiani followed the example : a streak of 
crimson was on his shirt-sleeve, and his eyes had got their 
hard black look, as of the flint-stone, before Bomara in 


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YITTORIA 


amazement discovered the couple to be at it in all purity 
of intention, on the sharp edge of the abyss. He knocked 
up their weapons and stood between them, puffing his cigar- 
ette leisurely. 

“ I fine you both,” he said. 

He touched Ammiani’s sword-arm, nodded with satisfac- 
tion to find that there was no hurt, and cried, “ You have 
an Austrian out on the ground by this time to-morrow morn- 
ing. So, according to the decree ! ” 

“ Captain Weisspriess is in the city,” was remarked. 

“ There are a dozen on the list,” said little Pietro Cardi, 
drawing out a paper. 

“ If you are to be doing nothing else to-morrow morning,” 
added Leone Rufo, “ we may as well march out the whole 
dozen.” 

These two were boys under twenty. 

“ Shall it be the first hit for Captain Weisspriess ? v 
Count Medole said this while handing a fresh and fairly- 
buttoned foil to Ammiani. 

Romara laughed: “You will require to fence the round 
of Milan city, my dear count, to win a claim to Captain 
Weisspriess. In the first place, I yield him to no man who 
does not show himself a better man than I. It’s the point 
upon which I don’t pay compliments.” 

Count Medole bowed. 

“But, if you want occupation,” added Luciano, closing 
his speech with a merely interrogative tone. 

“ I scarcely want that, as those who know me will tell 
you,” said Medole, so humbly, that those who knew him 
felt that he had risen to his high seat of intellectual 
contempt. He could indulge himself, having shown his 
courage. 

“ Certainly not ; if you are devising means of subsistence 
for the widows and orphans of the men who will straggle out 
to be slaughtered to-night,” said Luciano ; “ you have occu- 
pation in that case.” 

“ I will do my best to provide for them,” — the count per- 
sisted in his air of humility, — “though it is a question 
with some whether idiots should live.” He paused effec- 
tively, and sucked in a soft smile of self-approbation at 
the stroke. Then he pursued: “We meet the day after 


AMMIANI THROUGH THE MIDNIGHT 


149 


to-morrow. The Pope’s Month is closed. We meet here 
at nine in the morning. The next day at eleven at Faru- 
gino’s, the barber’s, in Monza. The day following at Cainer- 
lata, at eleven likewise. Those who attend will be made 
aware of the dispositions for the week, and the day we shall 
name for the rising. It is known to yon all, that without 
affixing a stigma on onr new prima-donna, we exclude her 
from any share in this business. All the Heads have been 
warned that we yield this night to the Austrians. Gentle- 
men, I cannot be more explicit. I wish that I could please 
you better.” 

“ Oh, by all means,” said Pietro Cardi : “ but patience is 
the pestilence ; I shall roam in quest of adventure. Another 
quiet week is a tremendous trial.” 

He crossed foils with Leone Rufo, but finding no stop to 
the drawn ‘ swish ’ of the steel, he examined the end of his 
weapon with a lengthening visage, for it was buttonless. 
Ammiani burst into laughter at the spontaneous boyishness 
in the faces of the pair of ambitious lads. They both offered 
him one of the rapiers upon equal terms. Count Medole’s 
example of intemperate vanity was spoiling them. 

“You know my opinion,” Ammiani said to the count. 
“I told you last night, and I tell you again to-day, that 
Barto Rizzo is guilty of gross misconduct, and that you 
must plead the same to a sort of excusable treason. Count 
Medole, you cannot wind and unwind a conspiracy like a 
watch. Who is the head of this one ? It is the man Barto 
Rizzo. He took proceedings before he got you to sanction 
them. You may be the vessel, but he commands, or at least, 
he steers it.” 

The count waited undemonstratively until Ammiani had 
come to an end. “ You speak, my good Ammiani, with an 
energy that does you credit,” he said, “ considering that it is 
not in your own interest, but another person’s. Remember, 
I can bear to have such a word as treason ascribed to my 
acts.” 

Fresh visitors, more or less mixed in the conspiracy, and 
generally willing to leave the management of it to Count 
Medole, now entered the saloon. These were Count Rasati, 
Angelo Dovili, a Piedmontese General, a Tuscan duke, and 
one or two aristocratic notabilities and historic nobodies. 


150 


VITTORIA 


They were hostile to the Chief whom Luciano and Carlo 
revered and obeyed. The former lit a cigarette, and saying 
to his friend, “ Do you breakfast with your mother ? I will 
come too,” slipped his hand on Ammiani’s arm ; they walked 
out indolently together, with the smallest shade of an appear- 
ance of tolerating scorn for those whom they left behind. 

“ Medole has money and rank and influence, and a kind of 
I-don’t-know-what womanishness, that makes him push like 
a needle for the lead, and he will have the lead ! and when 
he has got the lead, there’s the last chapter of him,” said 
Luciano. “His point of ambition is the perch of the 
weather-cock. Why did he set upon you, my Carlo ? I 
saw the big V running up your forehead when you faced 
him. If you had finished him no great harm would have 
been done.” 

“ I saw him for a short time last night, and spoke to him 
in my father’s style,” said Carlo. “ The reason was, that he 
defended Barto Rizzo for putting the ring about the signo- 
rina Vittoria’s name, and causing the black butterfly to be 
pinned to her dress.” 

Luciano’s brows stood up. 

“ If she sings to-night, depend upon it there will be a dis- 
turbance,” he said. “There may be a rising in spite of 
Medole and such poor sparks, who’re afraid to drop on pow- 
der, and twirl and dance till the wind blows them out. 
And mind, the chance rising is commonly the luckiest. If 
I get a command I march to the Alps. We must have the 
passes of the Tyrol. It seems to me that whoever holds the 
Alps must ride the Lombard mare. You spring booted and 
spurred into the saddle from the Alps.” 

Carlo was hurt by his friend’s indifference to the base 
injury done to Vittoria. 

“ I have told Medole that she will sing to-night in spite 
of him,” he was saying, with the intention of bringing round 
some reproach upon Luciano for his want of noble sympathy, 
when the crash of an Austrian regimental band was heard 
coming up the Corso. It stirred him to love his friend with 
all his warmth. “ At any rate, for my sake, Luciano, you 
will respect and uphold her.” 

“ Yes, while she’s true,” said Luciano, unsatisfactorily. 

The regiment, in review uniform, followed by two pieces 


COUNTESS AMMIANI 


151 


of artillery, passed by. Then came a squadron of hussars 
and one of Uhlans, and another foot regiment, more artil- 
lery, fresh cavalry. 

“ Carlo, if three generations of us pour out our blood to 
fertilize Italian ground, it’s not too much to pay to chase 
those drilled curs.” Luciano spoke in vehement undertone. 

“ We’ll breakfast and have a look at them in the Piazza 
d’Armi, and show that we Milanese are impressed with a 
proper idea of their power,” said Carlo, brightening as he 
felt the correction of his morbid lover’s anger in Luciano’s 
reaching view of their duties as Italian citizens. The heat 
and whirl of the hour struck his head, for to-morrow they 
might be wrestling with that living engine which had 
marched past, and surely all the hate he could muster 
should be turned upon the outer enemy. He gained his 
mother’s residence with clearer feelings. 


CHAPTER XVI 

COUNTESS AMMIANI 

Countess Ammiani was a Venetian lady of a famous 
House, the name of which is as a trumpet sounding from 
the inner pages of the Republic. Her face was like a leaf 
torn from an antique volume ; the hereditary features told 
the story of her days. The face was sallow and fireless; 
life had faded like a painted cloth upon the imperishable 
moulding. She had neither fire in her eyes nor colour on 
her skin. The thin close multitudinous wrinkles ran up 
accurately ruled from the chin to the forehead’s centre, and 
touched faintly once or twice beyond, as you observe the 
ocean ripples run in threads confused to smoothness within 
a space of the grey horizon sky. But the chin was firm, the 
mouth and nose were firm, the forehead sat calmly above i 
these shows of decay. It was a most noble face ; a fortress 
face ; strong and massive, and honourable in ruin, though 
stripped of every flower. 

This lady in her girlhood had been the one lamb of the 


152 • 


VITTORIA 


family dedicated to heaven. Paolo, the General, her lover, 
had wrenched her from that fate to share with him a life of 
turbulent sorrows till she should behold the blood upon his 
grave. She, like Laura Piaveni, had bent her head above a 
slaughtered husband, but, unlike Laura, Marcellina Ammiani 
had not buried her heart with him. Her heart and all her 
energies had been his while he lived; from the visage of 
death it turned to her son. She had accepted the passion 
for Italy from Paolo ; she shared it with Carlo. Italian girls 
of that period had as little passion of their own as flowers 
kept out of sunlight have hues. She had given her son to 
her country with that intensely apprehensive foresight of a 
mother’s love which runs quick as Eastern light from the 
fervour of the devotion to the remote realization of the hour 
of the sacrifice, seeing both in one. Other forms of love, 
devotion in other bosoms, may be deluded, but hers will not 
be. She sees the sunset in the breast of the springing dawn. 
Often her son Carlo stood a ghost in her sight. With this 
haunting prophetic vision, it was only a mother, who was at 
the same time a supremely noble woman, that could feel all 
human to him notwithstanding. Her heart beat thick and 
fast when Carlo and Luciano entered the morning-room where 
she sat, and stopped to salute her in turn. 

“ Well ? ” she said, without betraying anxiety or playing 
at carelessness. 

Carlo answered, “ Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we 
die. I think that’s the language of peaceful men.” 

“ You are to be peaceful men to-morrow, my Carlo ? ” 

“ The thing is in Count Medole’s hands,” said Luciano ; 
“ and he is constitutionally of our Agostino’s opinion that we 
are bound to wait till the Gods kick us into action ; and, as 
Agostino says, Medole has raised himself upon our shoulders 
so as to be the more susceptible to their wishes when they 
blow a gale.” 

He informed her of the momentary thwarting of the con- 
spiracy, and won Carlo’s gratitude by not speaking of the 
suspicion which had fallen on Yittoria. 

“ Medole,” he said, “ has the principal conduct of the busi- 
ness in Milan, as you know, countess. Our Chief cannot 
be everywhere at once ; so Medole undertakes to decide for 
him here in old Milan. He decided yesterday afternoon to 


COUNTESS AMM1ANI 


153 


put off our holiday for what he calls a week. Checco, the 
idiot, in whom he confides, gave me the paper signifying the 
fact at four o’clock. There was no appeal ; for we can get 
no place of general meeting under Medole’s prudent man- 
agement. He fears our being swallowed in a body if we all 
meet.” 

The news sent her heart sinking in short throbs down to 
a delicious rest ; but Countess Ammiani disdained to be ser- 
vile to the pleasure, even as she had strengthened herself to 
endure the shocks of pain. It was a conquered heart that 
she and every Venetian and Lombard mother had to carry; 
one that played its tune according to its nature, shaping no 
action, sporting no mask. If you know what is meant by 
that phrase, a conquered heart, you will at least respect 
them whom you call weak women for having gone through 
the harshest schooling which this world can show example 
of. In such mothers Italy revived. The pangs and the 
martyrdom were theirs. Fathers could march to the field 
or to the grey glacis with their boys ; there was no intoxica- 
tion of hot blood to cheer those who sat at home watching 
the rise and fall of trembling scales which said life or death 
for their dearest. Their least shadowy hope could be but a 
shrouded contentment in prospect; a shrouded submission 
in feeling. What bloom of hope was there when Austria 
stood like an iron wall, and their own ones dashing against 
it were as little feeble waves that left a red mark and no 
more ? But, duty to their country had become their religion ; 
sacrifice they accepted as their portion ; when the last stem 
evil befel them they clad themselves in a veil and walked 
upon an earth they had passed from for all purposes save 
service of hands. Italy revived in these mothers. Their 
torture was that of the reanimation of her frame from the 
death-trance. 

Carlo and Luciano fell hungrily upon dishes of herb- 
flavoured cutlets, and Neapolitan maccaroni, green figs, 
green and red slices of melon, chocolate, and a dry red 
Florentine wine. The countess let them eat, and then gave 
her son a letter that had been delivered at her door an hour 
back by the confectioner Zotti. It proved to be an enclosure 
of a letter addressed to Vittoria by the Chief. Genoa was 
its superscription. . From that place it was forwarded by 


154 


VITTORIA 


running relays of volunteer messengers. There were points 
of Italy which the Chief could reach four-and-twenty hours 
in advance of the Government with all its aids and machin- 
ery. Vittoria had simply put her initials at the foot of the 
letter. Carlo read it eagerly and cast it aside. It dealt in 
ideas and abstract phraseology ; he could get nothing of it 
between his impatient teeth ; he was reduced to a blank 
wonder at the reason for her sending it on to him. It said 
indeed — and so far it seemed to have a meaning for her : — 

“No backward step. We can bear to fall; we cannot 
afford to draw back.” 

And again : — 

“ Remember that these uprisings are the manifested pulsa- 
tions of the heart of yonr country, so that none shall say she 
is a corpse, and knowing that she lives, none shall say that 
she deserves not freedom. It is the protest of her immortal 
being against her impious violator.” 

Evidently the Chief had heard nothing of the counter- 
stroke of Barto Rizzo, and of Count Medole’s miserable 
weakness : but how, thought Carlo, how can a mind like 
Vittoria’s find matter to suit her in such sentences ? He 
asked himself the question, forgetting that a little time gone 
by, while he was aloof from the tumult and dreaming of it, 
this airy cloudy language, and every symbolism, had been 
strong sustaining food, a vital atmosphere, to him. He did 
not for the moment (though by degrees he recovered his last 
night’s conception of her) understand that among the nobler 
order of women there is, when they plunge into strife, a 
craving for idealistic truths, which men are apt, under the 
heat and hurry of their energies, to put aside as stars that 
are meant merely for shining. 

His mother perused the letter — holding it out at arm’s 
length — and laid it by ; Luciano likewise. Countess Am- 
miani was an aristocrat : the tone and style of the writing 
were distasteful to her. She allowed her son’s judgement of 
the writer to stand for her own, feeling that she could sur- 
render little prejudices in favour of one who appeared to 
hate the Austrians so mortally. On the other hand, she de- 
fended Count Medole. Her soul shrank at the thought of 
the revolution being yielded up to theorists and men calling 
themselves men of the people — a class of men to whom Paolo 


COUNTESS AMMIANI 


155 


her soldier-husband’s aversion had always been formidably 
pronounced. It was an old and a wearisome task for Carlo 
to explain to her that the times were changed and the neces- 
sities of the hour different since the day when his father 
conspired and fought for freedom. Yet he could not gainsay 
her when she urged that the nobles should be elected to lead, 
if they consented to lead ; for if they did not lead, were they 
not excluded from the movement ? 

“ I fancy you have defined their patriotism,” said Carlo. 

“Nay, my son; but you are one of them.” 

“ Indeed, my dearest mother, that is not what they will 
tell you.” 

“Because you have chosen to throw yourself into the 
opposite ranks.” 

“You perceive that you divide our camp, madame my 
mother. Bor me there is no natural’ opposition of ranks. 
What are we ? We are slaves : all are slaves. While I am 
a slave, shall I boast that I am of noble birth ? ‘Proud of a 
coronet with gems of paste ! ’ some one writes. Save me 
from that sort of pride ! I am content to take my patent of 
nobility for good conduct in the revolution. Then I will be 
count, or marquis, or duke ; — I am not a Republican pure 
blood ; — but not till then. And in the meantime ” 

“ Carlo is composing for his newspaper,” the countess said 
to Luciano. 

“ Those are the leaders who can lead,” the latter replied. 
“ Give the men who are born to it the first chance. Old 
Agostino is right — the people owe them their vantage 
ground. But when they have been tried and they have 
failed, decapitate them. Medole looks upon revolution as 
a description of conjuring trick. He shuffles cards and 
arranges them for a solemn performance, but he refuses to 
cut them if you look too serious or I look too eager ; for that 
gives him a suspicion that you know what is going to turn 
up ; and his object is above all things to produce a surprise.” 

“You are both of you unjust to Count Medole,” said the 
countess. “ He imperils more than all of you.” 

“ Magnificent estates, it is true ; but of head or of heart 
not quite so much as some of us,” said Luciano, stroking his 
thick black pendent moustache and chintuft. “ Ah, pardon 
me; yes! he does imperil a finer cock’s comb. When he 


156 


VITTORIA 


sinks, and his vanity is cut in two, Medole will bleed so as 
to flopd his Lombard flats. It will be worse than death to 
him.” 

Carlo said: “Do you know what our Agostino says of 
Count Medole ? ” 

“Oh, for ever Agostino with you young men!” the 
countess exclaimed. “I believe he laughs at you.” 

“ To be sure he does : he laughs at all. But, what he 
says of Count Medole holds the truth of the thing, and may 
make you easier concerning the count’s estates. He says 
that Medole is vaccine matter which the Austrians apply to 
this generation of Italians to spare us the terrible disease. 
They will or they won’t deal gently with Medole, by-and-by ; 
but for the present he will be handled tenderly. He is 
useful. I wish I could say that we thought so too. And 
now,” Carlo stooped to her and took her hand, “ shall we see 
you at La Scala to-night ? ” 

The countess, with her hands lying in his, replied: “I 
have received an intimation from the authorities that my 
box is wanted.” 

“ So you claim your right to occupy it ! ” 

“ That is my very humble protest for personal liberty.” 

“Good: I shall be there, and shall much enjoy an intro- 
duction to the gentleman who disputes it with you. Besides, 
mother, if the signorina Yittoria sings . . . .” 

Countess Ammiani’s gaze fixed upon her son with a level 
steadiness. His voice threatened to be unequal. All the 
pleading force of his eyes was thrown into it, as he said : 
“ She will sing : and she gives the signal ; that is certain. 
We may have to rescue her. If I can place her under your 
charge, I shall feel that she is safe, and is really pro- 
tected.” 

The countess looked at Luciano before she answered: 
“Yes, Carlo, whatever I can do. But you know I have not 
a scrap of influence.” 

“ Let her lie on your bosom, my mother.” 

“Is this to be another Yioletta ? ” 

“ Her name is Vittoria,” said Carlo, colouring deeply. A 
certain Yioletta had been his boy’s passion. 

Further distracting Austrian band-music was going by. 
This time it was a regiment of Italians in the white and blue 


IN THE PIAZZA d’ARMI 


157 


uniform. Carlo and Luciano leaned over the balcony, smok- 
ing, and scanned the marching of their fellow-countrymen 
in the livery of servitude. 

“ They don’t step badly,” said one ; and the other, with a 
smile of melancholy derision, said, “ We are all brothers ! ” 

Following the Italians came a regiment of Hungarian 
grenadiers, tall, swart-faced, and particularly light-limbed 
men, looking brilliant in the clean tight military array of 
Austria. Then a squadron of blue hussars, and a Croat 
regiment ; after which, in the midst of Czech dragoons and 
German Uhlans and blue Magyar light horsemen, with 
General officers and aides about him, the veteran Austrian 
Field-Marshal rode, his easy hand and erect figure and good- 
humoured smile belying both his age and his reputation 
among Italians. Artillery, and some bravely-clad horse of 
the Eastern frontier, possibly Serb, wound up the procession. 
It gleamed down the length of the Corso in a blinding sun- 
light ; brass helmets and hussar feathers, white and violet 
surcoats, green plumes, maroon capes, bright steel scabbards, 
bayonet-points, — as gallant a show as some portentously- 
magnified summer field, flowing with the wind, might be ; 
and over all the banner of Austria — the black double-headed 
eagle ramping on a yellow ground. This was the flower of 
iron meaning on such a field. 

The two young men held their peace. Countess Ammiani 
had pushed her chair back into a dark corner of the room, 
and was sitting there when they looked back like a sombre 
figure of black marble. 


CHAPTER XYII 

IN THE PIAZZA D’ARMI 

Carlo and Luciano followed the regiments to the Piazza 
d’Armi, drawn after them by that irresistible attraction to 
youths who have as yet had no shroud of grief woven for 
them — desire to observe the aspect of a brilliant foe. 

The Piazza d’Armi was the field of Mars of Milan, and an 
Austrian review of arms there used to be a tropical pageant. 


158 


VITTORIA 


The place was too narrow for broad manoeuvres, or for much 
more than to furnish an inspection of all arms to the General, 
and a display (with its meaning) to the populace. An un- 
usually large concourse of spectators lined the square, like 
a black border to a vast bed of flowers, nodding now this 
way, now that. Carlo and Luciano passed among the 
groups, presenting the perfectly smooth faces of young men 
of fashion, according to the universal aristocratic pattern 
handed down to querulous mortals from Olympus — the 
secret of which is to show a triumphant inaction of the 
heart and the brain, that are rendered positively subservient 
to elegance of limb. They knew the chances were in favour 
of their being arrested at any instant. None of the higher 
members of the Milanese aristocracy were visible ; the people 
looked sullen. Carlo was attracted by the tall figure of the 
signor Antonio-Pericles, whom he beheld in converse with 
the commandant of the citadel, out in the square, among 
chatting and laughing General officers. At Carlo’s elbow 
there came a burst of English tongues ; he heard Yittoria’s 
English name spoken with animation. “ Admire those 
faces,” he said to Luciano, but the latter was interchanging 
quiet recognitions among various heads of the crowd; a 
language of the eyelids and the eyebrows. When he did 
look round he admired the fair island faces with an Italian’s 
ardour : “ Their women are splendid ! ” and he no longer 
pushed upon Carlo’s arm to make way ahead. In the Eng- 
lish group were two sunny-haired girls and a blue-eyed lady 
with the famous English curls, full, and rounding richly. 
This lady talked of her brother, and pointed him out as he 
rode down the line in the Marshal’s staff. The young officer 
indicated presently broke away and galloped up to her, bend- 
ing over his horse’s neck to join the conversation. Emilia 
Belloni’s name was mentioned. He stared, and appeared 
to insist upon a contrary statement. Carlo scrutinized his 
features. While doing so he was accosted, and beheld his 
former adversary of the Motterone, with whom he had 
yesterday shaken hands in the Piazza of La Scala. The 
ceremony was cordially renewed. Luciano unlinked his 
arm from Carlo and left him. 

“It appears that you are mistaken with reference to 
mademoiselle Belloni,” said Captain Gambier. “ We hear 


IN THE PIAZZA D’ARMI 


159 


on positive authority that she will not appear at La Scala 
to-night. It’s a disappointment; though, from what you 
did me the honour to hint to me, I cannot allow myself to 
regret it.” 

Carlo had a passionate inward prompting to trust this 
Englishman with the secret. It was a weakness that he 
checked. When one really takes to foreigners, there is a 
peculiar impulse (I speak of the people who are accessible 
to impulse) to make brothers of them. He bowed, and said, 
“ She does not appear ? ” 

“ She has in fact quitted Milan. Not willingly. I would 
have stopped the business if I had known anything of it ; 
but she is better out of the way, and will be carefully looked 
after, where she is. By this time she is in the Tyrol.” 

“ And where ? ” asked Carlo, with friendly interest. 

“ At a schloss near Meran. Or she will be there in a very 
few hours. I feared — I may inform you that we were very 
good friends in England — I feared that when she once came 
to Italy she would get into political scrapes. I dare say you 
agree with me that women have nothing to do with politics. 
Observe : you see the lady who is speaking to the Austrian 
officer? — he is her brother. Like mademoiselle Belloni, 
he has adopted a fresh name ; it’s the name of his uncle, a 
General Pierson in the Austrian service. I knew him in 
England : he has been in our service. Mademoiselle Belloni 
lived with his sisters for some years — two or three. As you 
may suppose, they are all anxious to see her. Shall I intro- 
duce you ? They will be glad to know one of her Italian 
friends.” 

Carlo hesitated; he longed to hear those ladies talk of 
Vittoria. “Do they speak French?” 

“ Oh, dear, yes. That is, as we luckless English people 
speak it. Perhaps you will more easily pardon their seminary 
Italian. See there,” Captain Gambier pointed at some 
trotting squadrons; “these Austrians have certainly a 
matchless cavalry. The artillery seems good. The infantry 
are fine men — very fine men. They have a ‘ woodeny ’ 
movement ; but that’s in the nature of the case : tremendous 
discipline alone gives homogeneity to all those nationalities. 
Somehow they get beaten. I doubt whether anything will 
beat their cavalry.” 


160 


VITTORIA 


“ They are useless in street-fighting,” said Carlo. 

“ Oh, street-fighting ! ” Captain Gainbier vented a soldier’s 
disgust at the notion. “They’re not in Paris. Will you 
step forward ? ” 

Just then the tall Greek approached the party of English. 
The introduction was delayed. 

He was addressed by the fair lady, in the island tongue, 
as “ Mr. Pericles.” She thanked him for his extreme conde- 
scension in deigning to notice them. But whatever his 
condescension had been, it did not extend to an admitted 
acquaintance with the poor speech of the land of fogs. An 
exhibition of aching deafness was presented to her so reso- . 
lutely, that at last she faltered, “ What ! have you forgotten 
English, Mr. Pericles ? You spoke it the other day.” 

“ It is ze language of necessity — of commerce,” he 
replied. 

“ But, surely, Mr. Pericles, you dare not presume to tell 
me you choose to be ignorant of it whenever you please ? ” 

“ I do not take grits into ze teeth, madame ; no more.” 

“ But you speak it perfectly.” 

“ Perfect it may be, for ze transactions of commerce. I 
wish to keep my teez.” 

“ Alas ! ” said the lady, compelled, “ I must endeavour to 
swim in French.” 

“At your service, madame,” quoth the Greek, with an 
immediate doubling of the length of his body. 

Carlo heard little more than he knew ; but the confirma- 
tion of what we know will sometimes instigate us like fresh 
intelligence, and the lover’s heart was quick to apprehend 
far more than he knew in one direction. He divined instan- 
taneously that the English Austrian spoken of by Barto 
Rizzo was the officer sitting on horseback within half-a-dozen 
yards of him. The certainty of the thought cramped his 
muscles. For the rest, it became clear to him that the 
attempt of the millionaire connoisseur to carry off Vittoria 
had received the tacit sanction of the Austrian authorities ; 
for reasons quite explicable, Mr. Pericles, as the English 
lady called him, distinctly hinted it, while affirming with 
vehement self-laudation that his scheme had succeeded for 
the vindication of Art. 

“ The opera you will hear zis night,” he said, “ will be 


IN THE PIAZZA d’ARMI 


161 


hissed. You will hear a chorus of screech-owls to each 
song of that poor Irma, whom the Italian people call 1 crab- 
apple.’ Well ; she pleases German ears, and if they can 
support her, it is well. But la Yittoria — your Belloni — 
you will not hear ; and why ? She has been false to her 
Art, false ! She has become a little devil in politics. It is 
a Guy Fawkes femelle! She has been guilty of the immense 
crime of ingratitude. She is dismissed to study, to peni- 
tence, and to the society of her old friends, if they will visit 
her.” 

“ Of course we will,” said the English lady ; “ either be- 
fore or after our visit to Venice — delicious Venice ! ” 

“ Which you have not seen — hein ? ” Mr. Pericles snarled ; 
“ and have not smelt. There is no music in Venice! But 
you have nothing but street tinkle-tinkle ! A place to live 
in ! mon Dieu ! ” 

The lady smiled. “My husband insists upon trying the 
baths of Bormio, and then we are to go over a pass for him 
to try the grape-cure at Meran. If I can get him to prom- 
ise me one whole year in Italy, our visit to Venice may be 
deferred. Our doctor, monsieur, indicates our route. If 
my brother can get leave of absence, we shall go to Bormio 
and to Meran with him. He is naturally astonished that 
Emilia refused to see him ; and she refused to see us too ! 
She wrote a letter, dated from the Conservatorio to him, — he 
had it in his saddle-bag, and was robbed of it and other 
precious documents, when the wretched, odious people set 
upon him in Verona — poor boy ! She said in the letter that 
she would see him in a few days after the fifteenth, which 
is to-day.” 

“Ah! a few days after the fifteenth, which is to-day,” 
Mr. Pericles repeated. “ I saw you but the day before yes- 
terday, madame, or I could have brought you together. She 
is now away — off — out of sight — the perftde ! Ah ! false 
that she is; speak not of her. You remember her in Eng- 
land. There it was trouble, trouble ; but here, we are a pot 
on a fire with her ; speak not of her. She has used me ill, 
madame. I am sick.” 

His violent gesticulation drooped. In a temporary aban- 
donment to chagrin, he wiped the moisture from his forehead, 
unwilling or heedless of the mild ironical mouthing of the 


162 


VITTORIA 


ladies, and looked about ; for Carlo had made a movement 
to retire, — he had heard enough for discomfort. 

“ Ah ! my dear Ammiani, the youngest editor in Europe ! 
how goes it with you ? ” the Greek called out with revived 
affability. 

Captain Gambier perceived that it was time to present 
his Italian acquaintance to the ladies by name, as a friend 
of mademoiselle Belloni. 

“ My most dear Ammiani,” Antonio-Pericles resumed ; he 
barely attempted to conceal his acrid delight in casting a 
mysterious shadow of coming vexation over the youth ; “ I 
am afraid you will not like the opera Camilla , or perhaps 
it is the Camilla you will not like. But, shoulder arms, 
march ! ” (a foot regiment in motion suggested the form of 
the recommendation) “what is not for to-day may be for 
to-morrow. Let us wait. I think, my Ammiani, you are to 
have a lemon and not an orange. Never mind. Let us wait.” 

Carlo got his forehead into a show of smoothness, and 
said, “ Suppose, my dear signor Antonio, the prophet of 
dark things were to say to himself \ 1 Let us wait ? ’ ” 

“Hein — it is deep.” Antonio-Pericles affected to sound 
the sentence, eye upon earth, as a sparrow spies worm or 
crumb. “ Permit me,” he added rapidly ; an idea had struck 
him from his malicious reserve stores, — “ Here is Lieutenant 
Pierson, of the staff of the Field-Marshal of Austria, un- 
attached, an old friend of mademoiselle Emilia Belloni, — 
permit me, — here is Count Ammiani, of the Lombardia 
Milanese journal, a new friend of the signorina Vittoria 
Campa — mademoiselle Belloni — the signorina Campa — it 
is the same person, messieurs ; permit me to introduce you.” 

Antonio-Pericles waved his arm between the two young 
men. 

Their plain perplexity caused him to dash his fingers down 
each side of his mustachios in tugs of enjoyment. 

For Lieutenant Pierson, who displayed a certain readi- 
ness to bow, had caught a sight of the repellent stare on 
Ammiani’s face; a still and flat look, not aggressive, yet 
anything but inviting ; like a shield. 

Nevertheless, the lieutenant’s head produced a stiff nod. 
Carlo’s did not respond ; but he lifted his hat and bowed 
humbly in retirement to the ladies. 


IN THE PIAZZA D’ARMI 


163 


Captain Gambier stepped aside with him. 

“ Inform Lieutenant Pierson, I beg you,” said Ammiani, 
“ that I am at his orders, if he should consider that I have 
insulted him.” 

“By all means,” said Gambier; “only, you know, it’s 
impossible for me to guess what is the matter ; and I don’t 
think he knows.” 

Luciano happened to be coming near. Carlo went up to 
him, and stood talking for half-a-minute. He then returned 
to Captain Gambier, and said, “ I put myself in the hands of 
a man of honour. You are aware that Italian gentlemen are 
not on terms with Austrian officers. If I am seen exchang- 
ing salutes with anyone of them, I offend my countrymen ; 
and they have enough to bear already.” 

Perceiving that there was more in the background, Gam- 
bier simply bowed. He had heard of Italian gentlemen 
incurring the suspicion of their fellows by merely being seen 
in proximity to an Austrian officer. 

As they were parting, Carlo said to him, with a very 
direct meaning in his eyes, “ Go to the opera to-night.” 

“Yes, I suppose so,” the Englishman answered, and 
digested the look and the recommendation subsequently. 

Lieutenant Pierson had ridden off. The war-machine was 
in motion from end to end: the field of flowers was a 
streaming flood; regiment by regiment, the crash of bands 
went by. Outwardly the Italians conducted themselves with 
the air of ordinary heedless citizens, in whose bosoms the 
music set no hell-broth boiling. Patrician and plebeian, 
they were chiefly boys; though here and there a middle- 
aged workman cast a look of intelligence upon Carlo and 
Luciano, when these two passed along the crowd. A gloom 
of hoarded hatred was visible in the mass of faces, ready 
to spring fierily. Arms were in the city. With hatred to 
prompt the blow, with arms to strike, so much dishonour 
to avenge, we need not wonder that these youths beheld 
the bit of liberty in prospect magnified by their mighty 
obfuscating ardour, like a lantern in a fog. Reason did not 
act. They were in such a state when just to say “Italia! 
Italia!” gave them nerve to match an athlete. So, the 
parading of Austria, the towering athlete, failed of its 
complete lesson of intimidation, and only ruffled the surface 


164 


YITTORIA 


of insurgent hearts. It seemed, and it was, an insult to the 
trodden people, who read it as a lesson for cravens : their 
instinct commonly hits the bell. They felt that a secure 
supremacy would not have paraded itself : so they divined 
indistinctly that there was weakness somewhere in the 
councils of the enemy. When the show had vanished, their 
spirits hung pausing, like the hollow air emptied of big 
sound, and reacted. Austria had gained little more by her 
display than the conscientious satisfaction of the pedagogue 
who lifts the rod to advise intending juvenile culprits how 
richly it can be merited and how poor will be their future 
grounds of complaint. 

But before Austria herself had been taught a lesson she 
conceived that she had but one man and his feeble instru- 
ments, and occasional frenzies, opposed to her, — him whom 
we saw on the Motterone, — which was ceasing to be true ; 
though it was true that the whole popular movement flowed 
from that one man. She observed travelling sparks in the 
embers of Italy, and crushed them under her heel, without 
reflecting that a vital heat must be gathering where the 
spots of fire run with such a swiftness. It was her belief 
that if she could seize that one man, whom many of the 
younger nobles and all the people acknowledged as their 
Chief — for he stood then without a rival in his task — she 
would have the neck of conspiracy in her angry grasp. Had 
she caught him, the conspiracy for Italian freedom would not 
have crowed for many long seasons ; the torch would have 
been ready, but not the magazine. He prepared it ; it was 
he who preached to the Italians that opportunity is a mock- 
ing devil when we look for it to be revealed ; or, in other 
words, wait for chance; as it is God’s angel when it is 
created within us, the ripe fruit of virtue and devotion. He 
cried out to Italians to wait for no inspiration but their 
own ; that they should never subdue their minds to follow 
any alien example ; nor let a foreign city of fire be their 
beacon. Watching over his Italy ; her wrist in his medita- 
tive clasp year by year ; he stood like a mystic leech by the 
couch of a fair and hopeless frame, pledged to revive it by 
the inspired assurance, shared by none, that life had not 
forsaken it. A body given over to death and vultures — he 
stood by it in the desert. Is it a marvel to you that when 


THE NIGHT OF THE FIFTEENTH 


165 


the carrion-wings swooped low, and the claws fixed, and 
the beak plucked and savoured its morsel, he raised his 
arm, and urged the half-resuscitated frame to some vindi- 
cating show of existence ? Arise ! he said, even in what 
appeared most fatal hours of darkness. The slack limbs 
moved ; the body rose and fell. The cost of the effort was 
the breaking out of innumerable wounds, old and new ; the 
gain was the display of the miracle that Italy lived. She 
tasted her own blood, and herself knew that she lived. 

Then she felt her chains. The time was coming for her 
to prove, by the virtues within her, that she was worthy to 
live, when others of her sons, subtle and adept, intricate as 
serpents, bold, unquestioning as well-bestridden steeds, should 
grapple and play deep for her in the game of worldly strife. 
Now — at this hour of which I speak — when Austrians 
marched like a merry flame down Milan streets, and Italians 
stood like the burnt-out cinders of the fire-grate, Italy’s 
faint wrist was still in the clutch of her grave leech, who 
counted the beating of her pulse between long pauses, that 
would have made another think life to be heaving its last, 
not beginning. 

The Piazza d’Armi was empty of its glittering show. 


CHAPTER XVIII 

THE NIGHT OF THE FIFTEENTH 

We quit the Piazza d’Armi. Rumour had its home in 
Milan. On their way to the caffe La Scala, Luciano and 
Carlo (who held together, determined to be taken together 
if the arrest should come) heard it said that the Chief was 
in Milan. A man passed by and uttered it, going. They 
stopped a second man, who was known to them, and he con- 
firmed the rumour. Glad as sunlight once more, they hurried 
to Count Medole forgivingly. The count’s servant assured 
them that his master had left the city for Monza. “ Is 
Medole a coward ? ” cried Luciano, almost in the servant’s 
hearing. The fleeing of so important a man looked vile, 


166 


YITTORIA 


now that they were sharpened by new eagerness. Forthwith 
they were off to Agostino, believing that he would know the 
truth. They found him in bed. “Well, and what?” said 
Agostino, replying to their laughter. “ I am old ; too old 
to stride across a day and night, like you giants of youth. 
I take my rest when I can, for I must have it.” 

“ But, you know, 0 conscript father, ” said Carlo, willing 
to fall a little into his mood, “you know that nothing will 
be done to-night.” 

“Do I know so much?” Agostino murmured at full 
length. 

“Do you know that the Chief is in the city?” said 
Luciano. 

“A man who is lying in bed knows this,” returned 
Agostino, “that he knows less than those who are up, 
though what he does know he perhaps digests better. ’Tis 
you who are the fountains, my boys, while I am the pool 
into which you play. Say on.” 

They spoke of the rumour. He smiled at it. They saw 
at once that the rumour was false, for the Chief trusted 
Agostino. 

“Proceed to Barto, the mole,” he said, “Barto the miner; 
he is the father of daylight in the city : of the daylight of 
knowledge, you understand, for which men must dig deep. 
Proceed to him; — if you can find him.” 

But Carlo brought flame into Agostino’s eyes. 

“The accurse<T beast! he has pinned the black butterfly 
to the signorina’s dress.” 

Agostino rose on his elbow . He gazed at them. “ We are 
followers of a blind mole,” he uttered with an inner voice, 
while still gazing wrathfully, and then burst out in grief, 
“‘Patria o mea creatrix, patria o mea genetrix! ’ ” 

“ The signorina takes none of his warnings, nor do we. 
She escaped a plot last night, and to-night she sings.” 

“She must not,” said Agostino imperiously. 

“She does.” 

“I must stop that.” Agostino jumped out of bed. 

The young men beset him with entreaties to leave the 
option to her. 

“ Fools ! ” he cried, plunging a raging leg into his gar- 
ments. “Here, Iris! Mercury! fly to Jupiter and say we 


THE NIGHT OF THE FIFTEENTH 


167 


are all old men and boys in Italy, and are ready to accept 
a few middle-aged mortals as Gods, if they will come 
and help us. Young fools! Do you know that when 
you conspire you are in harness, and yokefellows, every 
one?” 

“Yoked to that Barto Bizzo! ” 

“Yes; and the worse horse of the two. Listen, you pair 
of Nuremberg puppet-heads! If the Chief were here, I 
would lie still in my bed. Medole has stopped the out- 
break. Eight or wrong, he moves a mass; we are subordi- 
nates — particles. The Chief can’t be everywhere. Milan 
is too hot for him. Two men are here, concealed — Einaldo 
and Angelo Guidascarpi. The rumour springs from that. 
They have slain Count Paul Lenkenstein, and rushed to 
old Milan for work, with the blood on their swords. Oh, 
the tragedy ! — when I have time to write it. Let me now 
go to my girl, to my daughter! The blood of the Lenken- 
stein must rust on the steel. Angelo slew him : Einaldo 
gave him the cross to kiss. You shall have the whole story 
by-and-by ; but this will be a lesson to Germans not to court 
our Italian damsels. Lift not that curtain, you Pannonian 
burglars ! Much do we pardon ; but bow and viol meet not, 
save that they be of one wood; especially not when signor 
bow is from yonder side the Ehcetian Alps, and donzella 
viol is a growth of warm Lombardy. Witness to it, Angelo 
and Einaldo Guidascarpi! bravo! You beys there — you 
stand like two Tyrolese salad-spoons! I say that my girl, 
my daughter, shall never help to fire blank shot. I sent 
my paternal commands to her yesterday evening. Does 
the wanton disobey her father and look up to a pair of 
rocket-headed rascals like you? Apes! if she sings that 
song to-night, the ear of Italy will be deaf to her for ever 
after. There’s no engine to stir to-night; all the locks are 
on it ; she will send half-a-dozen milJclings like you to perdi- 
tion, and there will be a circle of black blood about her 
name in the traditions of the insurrection — do you hear? 
Have I cherished her for that purpose? to have her dedi- 
cated to a brawl ! ” 

Agostino fumed up and down the room in a confusion of 
apparel, savouring his epithets and imaginative peeps while 
he stormed, to get a relish out of something, as beseems 


168 


VITTORIA 


the poetic temperament. The youths were silenced by him; 
Carlo gladly. 

“ Troop ! ” said the old man, affecting to contrast his 
attire with theirs; “two graces and a satyr never yet went 
together, and we’ll not frighten the classic Government of 
Milan. I go out alone. No, signor Luciano, I am not 
sworn to Count Medole. I see your sneer: contain it. 
Ah! what a thing is hurry to a mind like mine. It tears 
up the trees by the roots, floods the land, darkens utterly 
my poor quiet universe. I was composing a pastoral when 
you came in. Observe what, you have done with my 
‘Lovely Age of Gold! ’ ” 

Agostino’s transfigurement from lymphatic poet to fiery 
man of action, lasted till his breath was short, when the 
necessity for taking a deep draught of air induced him to 
fall back upon his idle irony. “Heads, you illustrious 
young gentlemen! — heads, not legs and arms, move a con- 
spiracy. Now, you — think what you will of it — are only 
legs and arms in this business. And if you are insubordi- 
nate, you present the shocking tabular spirit of the members 
of the body in revolt ; which is not the revolt we desire to 
see. I go to my daughter immediately, and we shall all 
have a fat sleep for a week, while the Tedeschi hunt and 
stew and exhaust their naughty suspicions. Do you know 
that the Pope’s Mouth is closed? We made it tell a big 
lie before it shut tight on its teeth — a bad omen, I admit; 
but the idea was rapturously neat. Barto, the sinner — be 
sure I throttle him for putting that blot on my swan ; only, 
not yet, not yet: he’s a blind mole, a mad patriot; — but, 
as I say, our beast Barto drew an Austrian to the Mouth 
last night, and led the dog to take a letter out of it, detail- 
ing the whole plot of to-night, and how men will be stationed 
at the vicolo here, ready to burst out on the Corso, and at 
the vicolo there, and elsewhere, all over the city, carrying 
fire and sword; a systematic map of the plot. It was 
addressed to Count Serabiglione ! — my boys! my boys! 
what do you think of it? — Bravo! though Barto is a 

deadly beast if he ” Agostino paused. “ Yes, he went 

too far ! too far ! ” 

“ Has he only gone too far, do you say? ” 

Carlo spoke sternly. His elder was provoked enough by 


THE NIGHT OF THE FIFTEENTH 


169 


his deadness of enthusiasm, and that the boy should dare 
to stalk on a bare egoistical lover’s sentiment to be critical 
of him, Agostino, struck him as monstrous. With the 
treachery of controlled rage, Agostino drew near him, and 
whispered some sentences in his ear. Agostino then called 
him his good Spartan boy for keeping brave countenance. 
“Wait till you comprehend women philosophically. All’s 
trouble with them till then. At La Scala to-night, my 
sons! We have rehearsed the fiasco; the Tedeschi perform 
it. Off with you, that I may go out alone ! ” 

He seemed to think it an indubitable matter that he 
would find Vittoria and bend her will. 

Agostino had betrayed his weakness to the young men, 
who read him with the keen eyes of a particular dis- 
approbation. He delighted in the dark web of intrigue, 
and believed himself to be no ordinary weaver of that 
sunless work. It captured his imagination, filling his 
pride with a mounting gas. Thus he had become allied 
to Medole on the one hand, and to Barto Bizzo on the 
other. The young men read him shrewdly, but speaking 
was useless. 

Before Carlo parted from Luciano, he told him the burden 
of the whisper, which had confirmed what he had heard on 
the Piazzi d’ Armi. It was this : Barto Bizzo, aware that 
Lieutenant Pierson was the bearer of despatches from the 
Archduke in Milan to the marshal, then in Verona, had 
followed, and by extraordinary effort reached Verona in 
advance; had there tricked and waylaid him, and obtained, 
instead of despatches, a letter of recent date, addressed to 
him by Vittoria, which compromised the insurrectionary 
project. 

“If that’s the case, my Carlo!” said his friend, and 
shrugged, and spoke in a very worldly fashion of the fair 
sex. 

Carlo shook him off. For the rest of the day he was 
alone, shut up with his journalistic pen. The pen traversed 
seas and continents like an old hack to whom his master 
has thrown the reins. Apart from the desperate perturba- 
tion of his soul, he thought of the Guidascarpi, whom he 
knew, and was allied to, and of the Lenkensteins, whom 
he knew likewise, or had known in the days when Giacomo 


1T0 


VITTORIA 


Piaveni lived, and Bianca von Lenkenstein, Laura’s sister, 
visited among the people of her country. Countess Anna 
and Countess Lena von Lenkenstein were the German 
beauties of Milan, lively little women, and sweet. Be- 
tween himself and Countess Lena there had been tender 
dealings about the age when sweetmeats have lost their 
attraction, and the charm has to be supplied. She was 
rich, passionate for Austria, romantic concerning Italy, a 
vixen in temper, but with a pearly light about her temples 
that kept her picture in his memory. And besides, during 
those days when women are bountiful to us as Goddesses, 
give they never so little, she had deigned to fondle hands 
with him; had set the universe rocking with a visible heave 
of her bosom; jingled all the keys of mystery; and had 
once (as to embalm herself in his recollection), once had 
surrendered her lips to him. Countess Lena would have 
espoused Ammiani, believing in her power to make an 
Austrian out of such Italian material. The Piaveni revolt 
had stopped that and all their intercourse by the division 
of the White Hand, as it was called; otherwise, the hand 
of the corpse. Ammiani had known also Count Paul von 
Lenkenstein. To his mind, death did not mean much, 
however pleasant life might be : his father and his friend 
had gone to it gaily; and he himself stood ready for the 
summons: but the contemplation of a domestic judicial 
execution, which the Guidascarpi seemed to have done upon 
Count Paul, affrighted him, and put an end to his temporary 
capacity for labour. He felt as if a spent shot were strik- 
ing on his ribs; it was the unknown sensation of fear. 
Changing, it became pity. “Horrible deaths these Aus- 
trians die ! ” he said. 

For a while he regarded their lot as the hardest. A shaft 
of sunlight like blazing brass warned him that the day 
dropped. He sent to his mother’s stables, and rode at a 
gallop round Milan, dining alone in one of the common 
hotel gardens, where he was a stranger. A man may have 
good nerve to face the scene which he is certain will be 
enacted, who shrinks from an hour that is suspended in 
doubt. He was aware of the pallor and chill of his looks, 
and it was no marvel to him when two sbirri in mufti, for- 
eign to Milan, set their eyes on him as they passed by to a 


THE NIGHT OF THE FIFTEENTH 


171 


vacant table on the farther side of the pattering gold-fish 
pool, where he sat. He divined that they might be in 
pursuit of the Guidascarpi, and alive to read a troubled 
visage. “Yet neither Kinaldo nor Angelo would look as I 
do now,” he thought, perceiving that these men were judg- 
ing by such signs, and had their ideas. Democrat as he 
imagined himself to be, he despised with a nobleman’s con- 
tempt creatures who were so dead to the character of men 
of birth as to suppose that they were pale and remorseful 
after dealing a righteous blow, and that they trembled! 
Ammiani looked at his hand: no force of his will could 
arrest its palsy. The Guidascarpi were sons of Bologna. 
The stupidity of Italian sbirri is proverbial, or a Milanese 
cavalier would have been astonished to conceive himself 
mistaken for a Bolognese. He beckoned to the waiter, and 
said, “ Tell me what place has bred those two fellows on 
the other side of the fountain.” After a side-glance of 
scrutiny, the reply was, “Neapolitans.” The waiter was 
ready to make an additional remark, but Ammiani nodded 
and communed with a toothpick. He was sure that those 
Neapolitans were recruits of the Bolognese Polizia; on the 
track of the Guidascarpi, possibly. As he was not unlike 
Angelo Guidascarpi in figure, he became uneasy lest they 
should blunder ’twixt him and La Scala; and the notion of 
any human power stopping him short of that destination, 
made Ammiani’ s hand perfectly firm. He drew on his 
gloves, and named the place whither he was going, aloud. 
“Excellency,” said the waiter, while taking up and pre- 
tending to reckon the money for the bill : “ they have asked 
me whether there are two Counts Ammiani in Milan.” 
Carlo’s eyebrows started. “Can they be after me 9” he 
thought, and said : “ Certainly ; there is twice anything in 
this world, and Milan is the epitome of it.” 

Acting a part gave him Agostino’s catching manner of 
speech. The waiter, who knew him now, took this for 
an order to say “Yes.” He had evidently a respect for 
Ammiani’s name: Carlo supposed that he was one of 
Milan’s fighting men. A sort of answer leading to “Yes” 
by a circuit and the assistance of the hearer, was conveyed 
to the sbirri. They were true Neapolitans : quick to sus- 
pect, irresolute upon their suspicions. He was soon aware 


172 


VITTORIA 


that they were not to he feared more than are the general 
race of bunglers, whom the Gods sometimes strangely 
favour. They perplexed him: for why were they after 
him? and what had made them ask whether he had a 
brother? He was followed, but not molested, on his way 
to La Scala. 

Ammiani’s heart was in full play as he looked at the 
curtain of the stage. The Night of the Fifteenth had come. 
For the first few moments his strong excitement fronting 
the curtain, amid a great host of hearts thumping and 
quivering up in the smaller measures like his own, together 
with the predisposing belief that this was to be a night of 
events, stopped his consciousness that all had been thwarted; 
that there was nothing but plot, plot, counterplot and tan- 
gle, disunion, silly subtlety, jealousy, vanity, a direful 
congregation of antagonistic elements; threads all loose, 
tongues wagging, pressure here, pressure there, like an 
uncertain rage in the entrails of the undirected earth, and 
no master hand on the spot to fuse and point the intense 
distracted forces. 

The curtain, therefore, hung like any common opera- 
screen; big only with the fate of the new prima donna. He 
was robbed even of the certainty that Vittoria would appear. 
From the blank aspect of the curtain he turned to the house, 
which was crowding fast, and was not like listless Milan 
about to criticize an untried voice. The commonly empty 
boxes of the aristocracy were full of occupants, and for 
a wonder the white uniforms were not in excess, though 
they were to be seen. The first person whom Ammiani 
met was Agostino, who spoke gruffly. Vittoria had been 
invisible to him. Neither the maestro, nor the impresario, 
nor the waiting-women had heard of her. Uncertainty was 
behind the curtain, as well as in front ; but in front it was 
the uncertainty which is tipped with expectation, hushing 
the usual noisy chatter, and setting a daylight of eyes for- 
ward. Ammiani spied about the house, and caught sight 
of Laura Piaveni with Colonel Corte by her side. The 
Lenkensteins were in the Archduke’s box. Antonio-Peri- 
cles, and the English lady and Captain Gambier, were next 
to them. The appearance of a white uniform in his mother’s 
box over the stage caused Ammiani to shut up his glass. 


THE PRIM A DONNA 


1T3 


He was making his way thither for the purpose of com- 
mencing the hostilities of the night, when Countess 
Ammiani entered the lobby, and took her son’s arm with 
a grave face and a trembling touch. 


CHAPTER XIX 

THE PRIMA DONNA 

“ Whoever is in my box is my guest,” said the countess, 
adding a convulsive imperative pressure on Carlo’s arm, to 
aid the meaning of her deep underbreath. She was a 
woman who rarely exacted obedience, and she was spon- 
taneously obeyed. No questions could be put, no explana- 
tions given in the crash, and they threaded on amid numerous 
greetings in a place where Milanese society had habitually 
ceased together, and found itself now in assembly with 
unconcealed sensations of strangeness. A card lay on the 
table of the countess’s private retiring-room: it bore the 
name of General Pierson. She threw off her black lace 
scarf. “Angelo Guidascarpi is in Milan,” she said. “He 
has killed one of the Lenkensteins, sword to sword. He 
came to me an hour after you left ; the sbirri were on his 
track; he passed for my son. He is now under the charge 
of Barto Rizzo, disguised; probably in this house. His 
brother is in the city. Keep the cowl on your head as long 
as possible; if these hounds see and identify you, there will 
be mischief.” She said no more, satisfied that she was 
understood, but opening the door of the box, passed in, and 
returned a stately acknowledgment of the salutations of two 
military officers. Carlo likewise bent his head to them; 
it was like bending his knee, for in the younger of the two 
intruders he recognized Lieutenant Pierson. The countess 
accepted a vacated seat; the cavity of her ear accepted the 
General’s apologies. He informed her that he deeply 
regretted the intrusion; he was under orders to be present 
at the opera, and to be as near the stage as possible, the 
countess’s box being designated. Her face had the unalter- 


174 


YITTORIA 


able composure of a painted head upon an old canvas. The 
General persisted in tendering excuses. She replied, “ It 
is best, when one is too weak to resist, to submit to an 
outrage quietly.” General Pierson at once took the posi- 
tion assigned to him ; it was not an agreeable one. Between 
Carlo and the lieutenant no attempt at conversation was 
made. 

The General addressed his nephew in English. “Did 
you see the girl behind the scenes, Wilfrid?” 

The answer was “No.” 

“Pericles has her fast shut up in the Tyrol: the best 
habitat for her if she objects to a whipping. Did you see 
Irma? ” 

“No; she has disappeared too.” 

“ Then I suppose we must make up our minds to an opera 
without head or tail. As Pat said of the sack of potatoes, 
°twould be a mighty fine beast if it had them.’ ” 

The officers had taken refuge in their opera-glasses, and 
spoke while gazing round the house. 

“ If neither this girl nor Irma is going to appear, there 
is no positive necessity for my presence here,” said the 
General, reduced to excuse himself to himself. “I’ll sit 
through the first scene and then beat a retreat. I might 
be off at once ; the affair looks harmless enough : only, you 
know, when there’s nothing to see, you must report that 
you have seen it, or your superiors are not satisfied.” 

The lieutenant was less able to cover the irksomeness of 
his situation with easy talk. His glance rested on Countess 
Lena von Lenkenstein, a quick motion of whose hand made 
him say that he should go over to her. 

“Very well,” said the General; “be careful that you give 
no hint of this horrible business. They will hear of it when 
they get home : time enough ! ” 

Lieutenant Pierson touched at his sister’s box on the 
way. She was very excited, asked innumerable things, — 
whether there was danger? whether he had a whole regi- 
ment at hand to protect peaceable persons? “Otherwise,” 
she said, “ I shall not be able to keep that man (her hus- 
band) in Italy another week. He refused to stir out to-night, 
though we know that nothing can happen. Your prima 
donna celestissima is out of harm’s way.” 


THE PRIMA DONNA 


175 


“Oh, she is safe, — ze minx;” cried Antonio-Pericles, 
laughing and saluting the Duchess of Graatli, who pre- 
sented herself at the front of her box. Major de Pyrmont 
was behind her, and it delighted the Greek to point them 
out to the English lady, with a simple intimation of the 
character of their relationship, at which her curls shook 
sadly. 

“Pardon, madame,” said Pericles. “In Italy, a husband 
away, ze friend takes title: it is no more.” 

“It is very disgraceful,” she said. 

“Ze morales, madame, suit ze sun.” 

Captain Gambier left the box with Wilfrid, expressing 
in one sentence his desire to fling Pericles over to the pit, 
and in another his belief that an English friend, named 
Merthyr Powys, was in the house. 

“He won’t be in the city four-and-twenty hours,” said 
Wilfrid. 

“Well; you’ll keep your tongue silent.” 

“ By heavens ! Gambier, if you knew the insults we have 
to submit to! The temper of angels couldn’t stand it. 
I’m sorry enough for these fellows, with their confounded 
country, but it’s desperate work to be civil to them; upon 
my honour, it is ! I wish they would stand up and let us 
have it over. We have to bear more from the women than 
the men.” 

“I leave you to cool,” said Gambier. 

The delayed absence of the maestro from his post at the 
head of the orchestra, where the musicians sat awaiting 
him, seemed to confirm a rumour that was now circling 
among the audience, warning all to prepare for a disappoint- 
ment. His baton was brought in and laid on the book of 
the new overture. When at last he was seen bearing 
onward through the music-stands, a low murmur ran round. 
Rocco paid no heed to it. His demeanour produced such 
satisfaction in the breast of Antonio-Pericles that he rose, 
and was guilty of the barbarism of clapping his hands. 
Meeting Ammiani in the lobby, he said, “ Come, my good 
friend, you shall help me to pull Irma through to-night. 
She is vinegar — we will mix her with oil. It is only for 
to-night, to save that poor Rocco’s opera.” 

“Irma!” said Ammiani; “she is by this time in Tyrol. 


176 VITTORIA 

Your Irma will have some difficulty in showing herself here 
within sixty hours.” 

“ How ! ” cried Pericles, amazed, and plucking after Carlo 
to stop him. “ I bet you ” 

“ How much? ” 

“ I bet you a thousand florins you do not see la Yittoria 
to-night.” 

“Good. I bet you a thousand florins you do not see 
Irma.” 

“No Vittoria, I say! ” 

“ And I say, no Lazzeruola ! ” 

Agostino, who was pacing the lobby, sent Pericles dis- 
traught with the same tale of the rape of Irma. He rushed 
to signora Piaveni’s box and heard it repeated. There he 
beheld, sitting in the background, an old English acquaint- 
ance, with whom Captain Gambier was conversing. 

“ My dear Powys, you have come all the way from England 
to see your favourite’s first night. You will be shocked, 
sir. She has neglected her Art. She is exiled, banished, 
sent away to study and to compose her mind.” 

“I think you are mistaken,” said Laura. “You will see 
her almost immediately.” 

“Signora, pardon me; do I not know best?” 

“You may have contrived badly.” 

Pericles blinked and gnawed his moustache as if it were 
food for patience. 

“I would wager a milliard of francs,” he muttered. 
With absolute pathos he related to Mr. Powys the aberra- 
tions of the divinely-gifted voice, the wreck which Yittoria 
strove to become, and from which he alone was striving to 
rescue her. He used abundant illustrations, coarse and 
quaint, and was half hysterical; flashing a white fist and 
thumping the long projection of his knee with a wolfish 
aspect. His grotesque sincerity was little short of the 
shedding of tears. 

“And your sister, my dear Powys?” he asked, as one 
returning to the consideration of shadows. 

“My sister accompanies me, but not to the opera.” 

“For another campaign — hein?” 

“To winter in Italy, at all events.” 

Carlo Ammiani entered and embraced Merthyr Powys 


THE PREVIA DONNA 


177 


warmly. The Englishman was at home among Italians: 
Pericles, feeling that he was not so, and regarding them 
all as a community of fever-patients without hospital, 
retired. To his mind it was the vilest treason, the grossest 
selfishness, to conspire or to wink at the sacrifice of a voice 
like Vittoria’s to such a temporal matter as this, which they 
called patriotism. He looked on it as one might look on 
the Hindoo drama of a Suttee. He saw in it just that 
stupid action of a whole body of fanatics combined to 
precipitate the devotion of a precious thing to extinction. 
And worse ; for life was common, and women and Hindoo 
widows were common ; but a Vittorian voice was but one in 
a generation — in a cycle of years. The religious belief of 
the connoisseur extended to the devout conception that her 
voice was a spiritual endowment, the casting of which 
priceless jewel into the bloody ditch of patriots was far 
more tragic and lamentable than any disastrous concourse 
of dedicated lives. He shook the lobby with his tread, 
thinking of the great night this might have been but for 
Vittoria’s madness. The overture was coming to an end. 
By tightening his arms across his chest he gained some 
outward composure, and fixed his eyes upon the stage. 

While sitting with Laura Piaveni and Merthyr Powys, 
Ammiani saw the apparition of Captain Weisspriess in his 
mother’s box. He forgot her injunction, and hurried to 
her side, leaving the doors open. His passion of anger 
spurned her admonishing grasp of his arm, and with his 
glove he smote the Austrian officer on the face. Weiss- 
priess plucked his sword out; the house rose; there was a 
moment like that of a- wild beast’s show of teeth. It 
passed: Captain Weisspriess withdrew in obedience to 
General Pierson’s command. The latter wrote on a slip 
of paper that two pieces of artillery should be placed in 
position, and a squad of men about the doors : he handed 
it out to Weisspriess. 

“ I hope, ” the General said to Carlo, “ we shall be able 
to arrange things for you without the interposition of the 
authorities.” 

Carlo rejoined, “ General, he has the blood of our family 
on his hands. I am ready.” 

The General bowed. He glanced at the countess for a 


178 


YITTORIA 


sign of maternal weakness, saw none, and understood that 
a duel was down in the morrow’s bill of entertainments, as 
well as a riot possibly before dawn. The house had revealed 
its temper in that short outburst, as a quivering of quick 
lightning-flame betrays the forehead of the storm. 

Countess Ammiani bade her son make fast the outer door. 
Her sedate energies could barely control her agitation. In 
helping Angelo Guidascarpi to evade the law, she had 
imperilled her son and herself. Many of the Bolognese 
sbirri were in pursuit of Angelo. Some knew his person; 
some did not ; but if those two before whom she had identi- 
fied Angelo as being her son Carlo chanced now to be in the 
house, and to have seen him, and heard his name, the risks 
were great and various. 

“Do you know that handsome young Count Ammiani?” 
Countess Lena said to Wilfrid. “Perhaps you do not 
think him handsome? He was for a short time a play- 
fellow of mine. He is more passionate than I am, and 
that does not say a little ; I warn you ! Look how excited 
he is. No wonder. He is — everybody knows it — he is 
la Yittoria’s lover.” 

Countess Lena uttered that sentence in Italian. The 
soft tongue sent it like a coiling serpent through Wilfrid’s 
veins. In English or in German it would not have pos- 
sessed the deadly meaning. 

She may have done it purposely, for she and her sister 
Countess Anna studied his face. The lifting of the curtain 
drew all eyes to the stage. 

Rocco Ricci’s baton struck for the opening of one of his 
spirited choruses; a chorus of villagers, who sing to the 
burden that Happiness, the aim of all humanity, has 
promised to visit the earth this day, that she may witness 
the union of the noble lovers, Camillo and Camilla. Then 
a shepherd sings a verse, with his hand stretched out to the 
impending castle. There lives Count Orso : will he permit 
their festivities to pass undisturbed? The puling voice is 
crushed by the chorus, which protests that the heavens are 
above Count Orso. But another villager tells of Count 
Orso’s power, and hints at his misdeeds. The chorus rises 
in reply, warning all that Count Orso has ears wherever 
three are congregated; the villagers break apart and eye 


THE PRIMA DONNA 


1T9 


one another distrustfully, reuniting to the song of Happi- 
ness before they disperse. Camillo enters solus. Montini, 
as Camillo, enjoyed a warm reception; but as he advanced 
to deliver his romanzo, it was seen that he and Rocco inter- 
changed glances of desperate resignation. Camillo has had 
love passages with Michiella, Count Orso’s daughter, and 
does not hesitate to declare that he dreads her. The orphan 
Camilla, who has been reared in yonder castle with her, as 
her sister, is in danger during all these last minutes which 
still retain her from his arms. 

“If I should never see her — I who, like a poor ghost 
upon the shores of the dead river, have been flattered with 
the thought that she would fall upon my breast like a ray 
of the light of Elysium — if I should never see her more! ” 
The famous tenore threw his whole force into that outcry 
of projected despair, and the house was moved by it : there 
were many in the house who shared his apprehension of a 
foul mischance. 

Thenceforward the opera and the Italian audience were as 
one. All that was uttered had a meaning, and was sympa- 
thetically translated. Camilla they perceived to be a grave 
burlesque with a core to it. The quick-witted Italians 
caught up the interpretation in a flash. ‘Count Orso ’ 
Austria; ‘Michiella’ is Austria’s spirit of intrigue; ‘Ca- 
millo’ is indolent Italy, amorous Italy, Italy aimless; 
‘Camilla’ is Young Italy! 

Their eagerness for sight of Yittoria was now red-hot, 
and when Camillo exclaimed “ She comes ! ” many rose 
from their seats. 

A scrap of paper was handed to Antonio-Pericles from 
Captain Weisspriess, saying briefly that he had found Irma 
in the carriage instead of the little “v,” thanked him for 
the joke, and had brought her back. Pericles was therefore 
not surprised when Irma, as Michiella, came on, breathless, 
and looking in an excitement of anger; he knew that he 
had been tricked. 

Between Camillo and Michiella a scene of some vivacity 
ensued — reproaches, threats of calamity, offers of returning 
endearment upon her part ; a display of courtly scorn upon 
his. Irma made her voice claw at her quondam lover very 
finely ; it was a voice with claws, that entered the hearing 


180 


VITTORIA 


sharp-edged, and left it plucking at its repose. She was 
applauded relishingly when, after vainly wooing him, she 
turned aside and said : — * 

“ What change is this in one who like a reed 
Bent to my twisting hands? Does he recoil? 

Is this the hound whom I have used to feed 
With sops of vinegar and sops of oil? ” 

Michiella’s further communications to the audience make 
it known that she has allowed the progress toward the cere- 
monies of espousal between Camillo and Camilla, in order, 
at the last moment, to show her power over the youth and 
to plunge the detested Camilla into shame and wretched- 
ness. 

Camillo retires: Count Orso appears. There is a duet 
between father and daughter : she confesses her passion for 
Camillo, and entreats her father to stop the ceremony; — 
and here the justice of the feelings of Italians, even in 
their heat of blood, was noteworthy. Count Orso says that 
he would willingly gratify his daughter, as it would gratify 
himself, but that he must respect the law. “ The law is of 
your own making/’ says Michiella. “Then, the more must 
I respect it,” Count Orso replies. 

The audience gave Austria credit for that much in a short 
murmur. 

Michiella’s aside, “Till anger seizes him I wait!” cre- 
ated laughter; it came in contrast with an extraordinary 
pomposity of self-satisfaction exhibited by Count Orso — 
the flower-faced, tun-bellied basso, Lebruno. It was irre- 
sistible. He stood swollen out like a morning cock. To 
make it further telling, he took off his yellow bonnet with 
a black-gloved hand, and thumped the significant colours 
prominently on his immense chest — an idea, not of Agos- 
tino’s, but Lebruno’s own; and Agostino cursed with fury. 
Both he and Rocco knew that their joint labour would prob- 
ably have only one night’s display of existence in the 
Austrian dominions, but they grudged to Lebruno the chief 
merit of despatching it to the Shades. 

The villagers are heard approaching. “ My father ! ” 
cries Michiella, distractedly; “the hour is near: it will be 
death to your daughter! Imprison Camillo: I can bring 


THE OPERA OF CAMILLA 


181 


twenty witnesses to prove that he has sworn you are 
illegally the lord of this country. You will rue the mar- 
riage. Do as you once did. Be bold in time. The arrow- 
head is on the string — cut the string ! ” 

“As I once did?” replies Orso with frown terrific, like 
a black crest. He turns broadly and receives the chorus of 
countrymen in paternal fashion — an admirably acted bit 
of grave burlesque. 

By this time the German portion of the audience had, 
by one or other of the senses, dimly divined that the opera 
was a shadow of something concealed — thanks to the buffo- 
basso Lebruno. Doubtless they would have seen this before, 
but that the Austrian censorship had seemed so absolute a 
safeguard. 

“My children! all are my children in this my gladsome 
realm ! ” Count Orso says, and marches forth, after receiv- 
ing the compliment of a choric song in honour of his paternal 
government. Michiella follows him. 

Then came the deep suspension of breath. Bor, as upon 
the midnight you count bell-note after bell-note of the toil- 
ing hour, and know not in the darkness whether there shall 
be one beyond it, so that you hang over an abysm until 
Twelve is sounded, audience and actors gazed with equal 
expectation at the path winding round from the castle, 
waiting for the voice of the new prima donna. 

“ Mia madre ! ” It issued tremblingly faint. None could 
say who was to appear. 

Bocco Bicci struck twice with his baton, flung a radiant 
glance across his shoulders for all friends, and there was 
joy in the house. Yittoria stood before them. 


CHAPTEB XX 

THE OPERA OF CAMILLA 

She was dressed like a noble damsel from the hands of 
Titian. An Italian audience cannot but be critical in their 
first glance at a prima donna, for they are asked to do 
homage to a queen who is to be taken on her merits : all 


182 


VITTORIA 


that they have heard and have been taught to expect of her 
is compared swiftly with the observation of her appearance 
and her manner. She is crucially examined to discover 
defects. There is no boisterous loyalty at the outset. And 
as it was now evident that Vittoria had chosen to imper- 
sonate a significant character, her indications of method 
were jealously watched for a sign of inequality, either in 
her motion, or the force of her eyes. So silent a reception 
might have seemed cruel in any other case ; though in all 
cases the candidate for laurels must, in common with the 
criminal, go through the ordeal of justification. Men do 
not heartily bow their heads until they have subjected the 
aspirant to some personal contest, and find themselves over- 
matched. The senses, ready to become so slavish in adula- 
tion and delight, are at the beginning more exacting than 
the judgement, more imperious than the will. A figure in 
amber and pale blue silk was seen, such as the great Vene- 
tian might have sketched from his windows on a day when 
the Doge went forth to wed the Adriatic : a superb Italian 
head, with dark banded hair-braid, and dark strong eyes 
under unabashed soft eyelids. She moved as, after long 
gazing at a painting of a fair woman, we may have the 
vision of her moving from the frame. It was an animated 
picture of ideal Italia. The sea of heads right up to the 
highest walls fronted her glistening, and she was mute as 
moonrise. A virgin who loosens a dove from her bosom 
does it with no greater effort than Vittoria gave out her 
voice. The white bird flutters rapidly; it circles and takes 
its flight. The voice seemed to be as little the singer’s 
own. 

The theme was as follows : — Camilla has dreamed over- 
night that her lost mother came to her bedside to bless her 
nuptials. Her mother was folded in a black shroud, looking 
formless as death, like very death, save that death sheds 
no tears. She wept, without change of voice, or mortal 
shuddering, like one whose nature weeps : “ And with the 
forth-flowing of her tears the knowledge of her features was 
revealed to me.” Behold the Adige, the Mincio, Tiber, 
and the Po ! — such great rivers were the tears pouring from 
her eyes. She threw apart the shroud: her breast and her 
limbs were smooth and firm as those of an immortal God- 


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dess : but breasts and limbs showed the cruel handwriting 
of base men upon the body of a martyred saint. The blood 
from those deep gashes sprang out at intervals, mingling 
with her tears. She said : — 

“ My child ! were I a Goddess, my wounds would heal. 
Were I a Saint, I should be in Paradise. I am no Goddess, 
and no Saint ; yet I cannot die. My wounds flow and my 
tears. My tears flow because of no fleshly anguish : I par- 
don my enemies. My blood flows from my body, my tears 
from my soul. They flow to wash out my shame. I have to 
expiate my soul’s shame by my body’s shame. Oh ! how shall 
I tell you what it is to walk among my children unknown of 
them, though each day I bear the sun abroad like my beating 
heart ; each night the moon, like a heart with no blood in it. 
Sun and moon they see, but not me ! They know not their 
mother. I cry to God. The answer of our God is this : — 
‘ Give to thy children one by one to drink of thy mingled 
tears and blood : — then, if there is virtue in them they shall 
revive, thou shalt revive. If virtue is not in them, they and 
thou shall continue prostrate, and the ox shall walk over 
you.’ From heaven’s high altar, 0 Camilla, my child, this 
silver sacramental cup was reached to me. Gather my tears 
in it, fill it with my blood, and drink.” 

The song had been massive in monotones, almost Grego- 
rian in its severity up to this point. 

“I took the cup. I looked my mother in the face. I 
filled the cup from the flowing of her tears, the flowing of 
her blood ; and I drank ! ” 

Yittoria sent this last phrase ringing out forcefully. From 
the inveterate contralto of the interview, she rose to pure 
soprano in describing her own action. “ And I drank,” was 
given on a descent of the voice : the last note was in the 
minor key — it held the ear as if more must follow : like a 
wail after a triumph of resolve. It was a masterpiece of 
audacious dramatic musical genius addressed with sagacious 
cunning and courage to the sympathizing audience present. 
The supposed incompleteness kept them listening; the in- 
tentness sent that last falling (as it were, broken) note 
travelling awakeningly through their minds. It is the 
effect of the minor key to stir the hearts of men with this 
particular suggestiveness. The house rose, Italians and 


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Germans together. Genius, music, and enthusiasm break 
the line of nationalities. A rain of nosegays fell about Yit- 
toria ; evvivas, bravas, shouts — all the outcries of delirious 
men surrounded her. Men and women, even among the 
hardened chorus, shook together and sobbed. “ Agostino ! ” 
and “ Rocco ! ” were called ; “Yittoria ! ” “ Yittoria ! ” above 
all, with increasing thunder, like a storm rushing down a 
valley, striking in broad volume from rock to rock, hum- 
ming remote, and bursting up again in the face of the vale. 
Her name was sung over and over — “ Yittoria! Yittoria!” 
as if the mouths were enamoured of it. 

“ Evviva la Vittoria e V Italia ! ” was sung out from the 
body of the house. 

An echo replied : — 

“ ‘ Italia d il premio della Yittoria ! ’” a well-known say- 
ing gloriously adapted, gloriously rescued from disgrace. 

But the object and source of the tremendous frenzy stood 
like one frozen by the revelation of the magic the secret of 
which she has studiously mastered. A nosegay, the last of 
the tributary shower, discharged from a distance, fell at her 
feet. She gave it unconsciously preference over the rest, 
and picked it up. A little paper was fixed in the centre. 
She opened it with a mechanical hand, thinking there might 
be patriotic orders enclosed for her. It was a cheque for 
one thousand guineas, drawn upon an English banker by the 
hand of Antonio-Pericles Agriolopoulos ; — freshly drawn ; 
the ink was only half dried, showing signs of the dictates 
of a furious impulse. This dash of solid prose, and its con- 
vincing proof that her Art had been successful, restored Yit- 
toria’ s composure, though not her early statuesque simplicity. 
Rocco gave an inquiring look to see if she would repeat the 
song. She shook her head resolutely. Her opening of the 
paper in the bouquet had quieted the general ebullition, and 
the expression of her wish being seen, the chorus was per- 
mitted to usurp her place. Agostino paced up and down the 
lobby, fearful that he had been guilty of leading her to 
anticlimax. He met Antonio-Pericles, and told him so; 
adding (for now the mask had been seen through, and was 
useless any further) that he had not had the heart to put 
back that vision of Camilla’s mother to a later scene, lest an 
interruption should come which would altogether preclude 


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its being heard. Pericles affected disdain of any success 
which Vittoria had yet achieved. “Wait for Act the 
Third,” he said; but his irritable anxiousness to hold 
intercourse with every one, patriot or critic, German, Eng- 
lish, or Italian, betrayed what agitation of exultation coursed 
in his veins. “ Aha ! ” was his commencement of a greet- 
ing ; “ was Antonio-Pericles wrong when he told you that 
he had a prima donna for you to amaze all Christendom, 
and whose notes were safe and firm as the footing of the 
angels up and down Jacob’s ladder, my friends ? Aha ! ” 

“ Do you see that your uncle is signalling to you ? ” 
Countess Lena said to Wilfrid. 

He answered like a man in a mist, and looked neither at 
her nor at the General, who, in default of his obedience to 
gestures, came good-humouredly to the box, bringing Cap- 
tain Weisspriess with him. 

“We’re assisting at a pretty show,” he said. 

“ I am in love with her voice,” said Countess Anna. 

“ Ay ; if it were only a matter of voices, countess.” 

“ I think that these good people require a trouncing,” said 
Captain Weisspriess. 

“Lieutenant Pierson is not of your opinion,” Countess 
Anna remarked. 

Hearing his own name, Wilfrid turned to them with a 
weariness well acted, but insufficiently to a jealous observa- 
tion, for his eyes were quick under the carelessly-dropped 
eyelids, and ranged keenly over the stage while they were 
affecting to assist his fluent tongue. 

Countess Lena levelled her opera-glass at Carlo Ammiani, 
and then placed the glass in her sister’s hand. Wilfrid 
drank deep of bitterness. “That is Yittoria’s lover,” he 
thought ; “the lover of the Emilia who once loved me ! ” 

General Pierson may have noticed this by-play : he said 
to his nephew in the brief military tone : “ Go out ; see that 
the whole regiment is handy about the house; station a 
dozen men, with a serjeant, at each of the back-doors, and 
remain below. I very much mistake, or we shall have to 
make a capture of this little woman to-night.” 

“ How on earth,” he resumed, while Wilfrid rose savagely 
and went out with his stiffest bow, “this opera was per- 
mitted to appear, I can’t guess ! A child could see through 


186 


VITTORIA 


it. The stupidity of our civil authorities passes my under- 
standing — it’s a miracle ! We have stringent orders not to 
take any initiative, or I would stop the Fraulein Camilla 
from uttering another note.” 

“ If you did that, I should be angry with you, General,” 
said Countess Anna. 

“And I also think the Government cannot do wrong,” 
Countess Lena joined in. 

The General contended himself by saying: “Well, we 
shall see.” 

Countess Lena talked to Captain Weisspriess in an under- 
tone, referring to what she called his dispute with Carlo 
Ammiani. The captain was extremely playful in his re- 
joinders. 

“ You iron man ! ” she exclaimed. 

“Man of steel would be the better phrase,” her sister 
whispered. 

“ It will be an assassination, if it happens.” 

“No officer can bear with an open insult, Lena.” 

“ I shall not sit and see harm done to my old playmate, 
Anna.” 

“ Beware of betraying yourself for one who detests you.” 

A grand duo between Montini and Vittoria silenced all 
converse. Camilla tells Camillo of her dream. He pledges 
his oath to discover her- mother, if alive ; if dead, to avenge 
her. Camilla says she believes her mother is in the dun- 
geons of Count Orso’s castle. The duo tasked Vittoria’ s 
execution of florid passages ; it gave evidence of her sound 
artistic powers. 

“ I was a fool,” thought Antonio-Pericles ; “ I flung my 
bouquet with the herd. I was a fool ! I lost my head ! ” 
He tapped angrily at the little ink-flask in his coat-pocket. 

The first act, after scenes between false Camillo and 
Michiella, ends with the marriage of Camillo and Camilla ; 
— a quatuor composed of Montini, Vittoria, Irma, and 
Lebruno. Michiella is in despair ; Count Orso is profoundly 
sonorous with paternity and devotion to the law. He has 
restored to Camilla a portion of her mother’s sequestrated 
estates. A portion of the remainder will be handed over to 
her when he has had experience of her husband’s good 
behaviour. The rest he considers legally his own by right 


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187 


of documents (Treaties), and by right of possession and his 
sword. Yonder castle he must keep. It is the key of all 
his other territories. Without it, his position will be 
insecure. (Allusion to the Austrian argument that the 
plains of Lombardy are the strategic defensive lines of the 
Alps.) 

Agostino, pursued by his terror of anticlimax, ran from 
the sight of Yittoria when she was called, after the fall of 
the curtain. He made his way to Rocco Ricci (who had 
given his bow to the public from his perch), and found the 
maestro drinking Asti to counteract his natural excitement. 
Rocco told Agostino, that up to the last moment, neither he 
nor any soul behind the scenes knew Yittoria would be able 
to appear, except that she had sent a note to him with a 
pledge to be in readiness for the call. Irma had come flying 
in late, enraged, and in disorder, praying to take Camilla’s 
part ; but Montini refused to act with the seconda donna as 
prima donna. They had commenced the opera in uncertainty 
whether it could go on beyond the situation where Camilla 
presents herself. “ I was prepared to throw up my baton,” 
said Rocco, “ and publicly to charge the Government with 
the rape of our prima donna. Irma I was ready to replace. 
I could have filled that gap.” He spoke of Yittoria’s 
triumph. Agostino’s face darkened. “ Ha ! ” said he, “ pro- 
vided we don’t fall flat, like your Asti with the cork out. I 
should have preferred an enthusiasm a trifle more progres- 
sive. The notion of travelling backwards is upon me 
forcibly, after that tempest of acclamation.” 

“ Or do you think that you have put your best poetry in 
the first Act ? ” Rocco suggested with malice. 

“Hot a bit of it!” Agostino repudiated the idea very 
angrily, and puffed and puffed. Yet he said, “ I should not 
be lamenting if the opera were stopped at once.” 

“ Ho ! ” cried Rocco ; “ let us have our one night. I bar- 
gain for that. Medole has played us false, but we go on. 
We are victims already, my Agostino.” 

“But I do stipulate,” said Agostino, “that my jewel is 
not to melt herself in the cup to-night. I must see her. 
As it is, she is inevitably down in the list for a week’s or a 
month’s incarceration.” 

Antonio-Pericles had this, in his case, singular piece of 


188 


YITTORIA 


delicacy, that he refrained from the attempt to see Yittoria 
immediately after he had flung his magnificent bouquet of 
treasure at her feet. In his intoxication with the success 
which he had foreseen and cradled to its apogee, he was now 
reckless of any consequences. He felt ready to take patriotic 
Italy in his arms, provided that it would succeed as Yitto- 
ria had done, and on the spot. Her singing of the severe 
phrases of the opening chant, or hymn, had turned the man, 
and for a time had put a new heart in him. The consolation 
was his also, that he had rewarded it the most splendidly — 
as it were, in golden italics of praise ; so that her forgiveness 
of his disinterested endeavour to transplant her was certain, 
and perhaps her future implicit obedience or allegiance 
bought. Meeting General Pierson, the latter rallied him. 

“ Why, my fine Pericles, your scheme to get this girl out 
of the way was capitally concerted. My only fear is that 
on another occasion the Government will take another view 
of it and you.” 

Pericles shrugged. “ The Gods, my dear General, decree. 
I did my best to lay a case before them ; that is all.” 

“ Ah, well ! I am of opinion you will not lay many other 
cases before the Gods who rule in Milan.” 

“ I have helped them to a good opera.” 

“Are you aware that this opera consists entirely of 
political allusions ? ” 

General Pierson spoke offensively, as the urbane Austrian 
military permitted themselves to do upon occasion when 
addressing the conquered or civilians. 

“ To me,” returned Pericles, “ an opera — it is music. I 
know no more.” 

“ You are responsible for it,” said the General, harshly. 
“ It was taken upon trust from you.” 

“Brutal Austrians ! ” Pericles murmured. “ And you do 
not think much of her voice, General ? ” 

“ Pretty fair, sir.” 

“ What wonder she does not care to open her throat to 
these swine ! ” thought the changed Greek. 

Yittoria’ s door was shut to Agostino. No voice within 
gave answer. He tried the lock of the door, and departed. 
She sat in a stupor. It was harder for her to make a second 
appearance than it was to make the first, when the shameful 


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189 


suspicion cruelly attached to her had helped to balance her 
steps with rebellious pride ; and more, the great collected 
wave of her ambitious years of girlhood had cast her forward 
to the spot, as in a last effort for consummation. Now that 
she had won the public voice (love, her heart called it) her 
eyes looked inward ; she meditated upon what she had to do, 
and coughed nervously. She frightened herself with her 
coughing, and shivered at the prospect of again going forward 
in the great nakedness of stage-lights and thirsting eyes. 
And, moreover, she was not strengthened by the character of 
the music and the poetry of the second Act : — a knowledge 
of its somewhat inferior quality may possibly have been at 
the root of Agostino’s dread of an anticlimax. The seconda 
donna had the chief part in it — notably an aria (Rocco had 
given it to her in compassion) that suited Irma’s pure shrieks 
and the tragic skeleton she could be. Vittoria knew how 
low she was sinking when she found her soul in the shallows 
of a sort of jealousy of Irma. For a little space she lost all 
intimacy with herself ; she looked at her face in the glass 
and swallowed water, thinking that she had strained a dream 
and confused her brain with it. The silence of her solitary 
room coming upon the blaze of light — the colour and clamour 
of the house, and the strange remembrance of the recent 
impersonation of an ideal character, smote her with the sense 
of her having fallen from a mighty eminence, and that she 
lay in the dust. All those incense-breathing flowers heaped 
on her table seemed poisonous, and reproached her as a delu- 
sion. She sat crouching alone till her tire-women called ; 
horrible talkative things ! her own familiar maid Giacinta 
being the worst to bear with. 

Now, Michiella, by making love to Leonardo, Camillo’s 
associate, discovers that Camillo is conspiring against her 
father. She utters to Leonardo very pleasant promises 
indeed, if he will betray his friend. Leonardo, a wavering 
baritono, complains that love should ask for any return save 
in the coin of the empire of love. He is seduced, and invokes 
a malediction upon his head should he accomplish what he 
has sworn to perform. Camilla reposes perfect confidence in 
this wretch, and brings her more doubtful husband to be of 
her mind. 

Camillo and Camilla agree to wear the mask of a dis- 


190 


VITTORIA 


sipated couple. They throw their mansion open; dicing, 
betting, intriguing, revellings, maskings, commence. Michi- 
ella is courted ardently by Camillo; Camilla trifles with 
Leonardo and with Count Orso alternately. Jealous again 
of Camilla, Michiella warns and threatens Leonardo ; but 
she becomes Camillo’s dupe, partly from returning love, 
partly from desire for vengeance on her rival. Camilla per- 
suades Orso to discard Michiella. The infatuated count 
waxes as the personification of portentous burlesque ; he is 
having everything his own way. The acting throughout — 
owing to the real gravity of the vast basso Lebruno’s bur- 
lesque, and Vittoria’s archness — was that of high comedy 
with a lurid background. Yittoria showed an enchanting 
spirit of humour. She sang one bewitching barcarolo that 
set the house in rocking motion. There was such melancholy 
in her heart that she cast herself into all the flippancy with 
abandonment. The Act was weak in too distinctly revealing 
the finger of the poetic political squib at a point here and 
there. The temptation to do it of an Agostino, who had no 
other outlet, had been irresistible, and he sat moaning over 
his artistic depravity, now that it stared him in the face. 
Applause scarcely consoled him, and it was with humiliation 
of mind that he acknowledged his debt to the music and the 
singers, and how little they owed to him. 

Now Camillo is pleased to receive the ardent passion of his 
wife, and the masking suits his taste, but it is the vice of his 
character that he cannot act to any degree subordinately in 
concert ; he insists upon his own positive headship ! — (allu- 
sion to an Italian weakness for sovereignties ; it passed unob- 
served, and Agostino chuckled bitterly over his excess of 
subtlety). Camillo cannot leave the scheming to her. He 
pursues Michiella to subdue her with blandishments. Re- 
proaches cease upon her part. There is a duo between them. 
They exchange the silver keys, which express absolute inti- 
macy, and give mutual freedom of access. Camillo can now 
secrete his followers in the castle; Michiella can enter 
Camilla’s blue-room, and ravage her caskets for treasonable 
correspondence. Artfully she bids him reflect on what she 
is forfeiting for him ; and so helps him to put aside the 
thought of that which he also may be imperilling. 

• Irma’s shrill crescendos and octave-leaps, assisted by her 


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191 


peculiar attitudes of strangulation, came out well in this 
scene. The murmurs concerning the sour privileges to be 
granted by a Lazzeruola were inaudible. But there has 
been a witness to the stipulation. The ever-shifting bari- 
tono, from behind a pillar, has joined in with an aside 
phrase here and there. Leonardo discovers that his fealty 
to Camilla is reviving. He determines to watch over her. 
Camillo now tosses a perfumed handkerchief under his nose, 
and inhales the coxcombical incense of the idea that he will 
do all without Camilla’s aid, to surprise her ; thereby teach- 
ing her to know him to be somewhat a hero. She has 
played her part so thoroughly that he can choose to fancy 
her a giddy person ; he remarks upon the frequent instances 
of girls who in their girlhood were wild dreamers becoming 
after marriage wild wives. His followers assemble, that 
he may take advantage of the exchanged key of silver. 
He is moved to seek one embrace of Camilla before the 
conflict : — she is beautiful ! There was never such beauty 
as hers ! He goes to her in the fittest preparation for the 
pangs of jealousy. But he has not been foremost in prac- 
tising the uses of silver keys. Michiella, having first ar- 
ranged with her father to be before Camillo’s doors at a 
certain hour with men-at-arms, is in Camilla’s private cham- 
ber, with her hand upon a pregnant box of ebony wood, 
when she is startled by a noise, and slips into concealment. 
Leonardo bursts through the casement window. Camilla 
then appears. Leonardo stretches the tips of his fingers 
out to her ; on his knees confesses his guilt and warns her. 
Camillo comes in. Thrusting herself before him, Michiella 
points to the stricken couple — “ See ! it is to show you this 
that I am here.” Behold occasion for a grand quatuor ! 

While confessing his guilt to Camilla, Leonardo has ex- 
cused it by an emphatic delineation of Michiella’s magic 
sway over him. (Leonardo, in fact, is your small modern 
Italian Machiavelli, overmatched in cunning, for the reason 
that he is always at a last moment the victim of his poor 
bit of heart or honesty : he is devoid of the inspiration of 
great patriotic aims.) If Michiella (Austrian intrigue) has 
any love, it is for such a tool. She cannot afford to lose 
him. She pleads for him ; and, as Camilla is silent on his 
account, the cynical magnanimity of Camillo is predisposed 


192 


VITTORIA 


to spare a fangless snake. Michiella withdraws him from 
the naked sword to the back of the stage. The terrible 
repudiation scene ensues, in which Camillo casts off his 
wife. If it was a puzzle to one Italian half of the audi- 
ence, the other comprehended it perfectly, and with rapt- 
ure. It was thus that Young Italy had too often been 
treated by the compromising, merely discontented, dallying 
aristocracy. Camilla cries to him, “ Have faith in me ! have 
faith in me ! have faith in me ! ” That is the sole answer 
to his accusations, his threats of eternal loathing, and gen- 
erally blustering sublimities. She cannot defend herself: 
she only knows her innocence. He is inexorable, being the 
guilty one of the two. Turning from him with crossed arms, 
Camilla sings : — 

“ Mother ! it is my fate that I should know 
Thy miseries, and in thy footprints go. 

Grief treads the starry places of the earth : 

In thy long track I feel who gave me birth. 

I am alone ; a wife without a lord ; 

My home is with the stranger — home abhorr’d ! — 

But that I trust to meet thy spirit there. 

Mother of Sorrows ! joy thou canst not share: 

So let me wander in among the tombs, 

Among the cypresses and the withered blooms. 

Thy soul is with dead suns : there let me be ; 

A silent thing that shares thy veil with thee.” 

The wonderful viol-like trembling of the contralto tones 
thrilled through the house. It was the highest homage to 
Yittoria that no longer any shouts arose : nothing but a pro- 
longed murmur, as when one tells another a tale of deep 
emotion, and all exclamations, all ulterior thoughts, all gath- 
ered tenderness of sensibility, are reserved for the close, are 
seen heaping for the close, like waters above a dam. The 
flattery of beholding a great assembly of human creatures 
bound glittering in wizard subservience to the voice of one 
soul, belongs to the artist, and is the cantatrice’s glory, pre- 
eminent over whatever poor glory this world gives. She 
felt it, but she felt it as something apart. Within her was 
the struggle of Italy calling to Italy : Italy’s shame, her 
sadness, her tortures, her quenchless hope, and the view of 
Freedom. It sent her blood about her body in rebellious 


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193 


volumes. Once it completely strangled her notes. She 
dropped the ball of her chin in her throat ; paused without 
ceremony, and recovered herself. Vittoria had too severe 
an artistic instinct to court reality; and as much as she 
could she from that moment corrected the underlinings of 
Agostino’s libretto. 

On the other hand, Irma fell into all his traps, and painted 
her Austrian heart with a prodigal waste of colour and frank 
energy: — 

“Now Leonardo is my tool : 

Camilla is my slave : 

And she I hate goes forth to cool 
Her rage beyond the wave. 

Joy! joy ! 

Paid am I in full coin for my caressing ; 

I take, but give nought, ere the priestly blessing.” 

A subtle distinction. She insists upon her reverence for 
the priestly (papistical) blessing, while she confides her 
determination to have it dispensed with in Camilla’s case. 
Irma’s known sympathies with the Austrian uniform seasoned 
the ludicrousness of many of the double-edged verses which 
she sang or declaimed in recitative. The irony of applaud- 
ing her vehemently was irresistible. 

Camilla is charged with conspiracy, and proved guilty by 
her own admission. 

The Act ends with the entry of Count Orso and his force ; 
conspirators overawed; Camilla repudiated; Count Orso 
imperially just; Leonardo chagrined; Camillo pardoned; 
Michiella triumphant. Camillo sacrifices his wife for safety. 
He holds her estates; and therefore Count Orso, whose 
respect for law causes him to have a keen eye for matri- 
monial alliances, is now paternally willing, and even anxious 
to bestow Michiella upon him when the Pontifical divorce 
can be obtained ; so that the long-coveted fruitful acres may 
be in the family. The chorus sings a song of praise to 
Hymen, the ‘ builder of great Houses.’ Camilla goes forth 
into exile. The word was not spoken, but the mention of 
‘ bread of strangers, strange faces, cold climes,’ said suffi- 
cient. 

“ It is a question whether we ought to sit still and see a 
firebrand flashed in our faces,” General Pierson remarked as 


194 


VITTOKIA 


the curtain fell. He was talking to Major de Pyrin ont out- 
side the Duchess of Graatli’s box. Two General officers 
joined them, and presently Count Serabiglione, with his 
courtliest semi-ironical smile, on whom they straightway 
turned their backs. The insult was happily unseen, and the 
count caressed his shaven chin and smiled himself onward. 
The point for the officers to decide was, whether they dared 
offend an enthusiastic house — the fiery core of the popula- 
tion of Milan — by putting a stop to the opera before worse 
should come. Their own views were entirely military ; but 
they were paralyzed by the recent pseudo-liberalistic de- 
spatches from Vienna ; and agreed, with some malice in their 
shrugs, that the odium might as well be left on the shoul- 
ders of the bureau which had examined the libretto. In 
fact, they saw that there would be rank peril in attempting 
to arrest the course of things within the walls of the house. 

“The temper of this people is changing oddly,” said 
General Pierson. Major de Pyrmont listened awhile to 
what they had to say, and returned to the duchess. Amalia 
wrote these lines to Laura : — 

“ If she sings that song she is to be seized on the wings 
of the stage. I order my carriage to be in readiness to take 
her whither she should have gone last night. Do you con- 
trive only her escape from the house. Georges de P. will 
aid you. I adore the naughty rebel ! ” 

Major de Pyrmont delivered the missive at Laura’s box. 
He went down to the duchess’s chasseur, and gave him cer- 
tain commands and money for a journey. Looking about, 
he beheld Wilfrid, who implored him to take his place for 
two minutes. De Pyrmont laughed. “ She is superb, my 
friend. Come up with me. I am going behind the scenes. 
The unfortunate impresario is a ruined man; let us both 
condole with him. It is possible that he has children, and 
children like bread.” 

Wilfrid was linking his arm to De Pyrmont’ s, when, with 
a vivid recollection of old times, he glanced at his uniform 
with Vittoria’s eyes. “ She would spit at me ! ” he muttered, 
and dropped behind. 

Up in her room Vittoria held council with Rocco, Agostino, 
and the impresario, Salvolo, who was partly their dupe. 
Salvolo had laid a freshly-written injunction from General 


THE OPERA OF CAMILLA 


195 


Pierson before her, bidding him to exclude the chief solo 
parts from the Third Act, and to bring it speedily to a ter- 
mination. His case was, that he had been ready to forfeit 
much if a rising followed; but that simply to beard the 
authorities was madness. He stated his case by no means 
as a pleader, although the impression made on him by the 
prima donna’s success caused his urgency to be civil. 

“ Strike out what you please,” said Yittoria. 

Agostino smote her with a forefinger. “ Rogue ! you 
deserve an imperial crown. You have been educated for 
monarchy. You are ready enough to dispense with what 
you don’t care for, and what is not your own.” 

Much of the time was lost by Agostino’s dispute with 
Salvolo. They haggled and wrangled laughingly over this 
and that printed aria, but it was a deplorable deception of 
the unhappy man ; and with Yittoria’ s stronger resolve to 
sing the incendiary song, the more necessary it was for her 
to have her soul clear of deceit. She said, “ Signor Salvolo, 
you have been very kind to me, and I would do nothing to 
hurt your interests. I suppose you must suffer for being an 
Italian, like the rest of us. The song I mean to sing is not 
written or printed. What is in the book cannot harm you, 
for the censorship has passed it; and surely I alone am 
responsible for singing what is not in the book — I and the 
maestro. He supports me. We have both taken precau- 
tions ” (she smiled) “ to secure our property. If you are de- 
spoiled, we will share with you. And believe, oh ! in God’s 
name, believe that you will not suffer to no purpose ! ” 

Salvolo started from her in a horror of amazement. He 
declared that he had been miserably deceived and entrapped. 
He threatened to send the company to their homes forth- 
with. “ Dare to !” said Agostino ; and to judge by the tem- 
per of the house, it was only too certain, that if he did so, 
La Scala would be a wrecked tenement in the eye of morn- 
ing. But Agostino backed his entreaty to her to abjure that 
song ; Rocco gave way, and half shyly requested her to think 
of prudence. She remembered Laura, and Carlo, and her 
poor little frightened foreign mother. Her intense ideal con- 
ception of her duty sank and danced within her brain as the 
pilot-star dances on the bows of a tossing vessel. All were 
against her, as the tempest is against the ship. Even light 


196 


VITTORIA 


above (by which I would image that which she could appeal 
to pleading in behalf of the wisdom of her obstinate will) 
was dyed black in the sweeping obscuration ; she failed to 
recollect a sentence that was to be said to vindicate her 
settled course. Her sole idea was her holding her country 
by an unseen thread, and of the everlasting welfare of Italy 
being jeopardized if she relaxed her hold. Simple obstinacy 
of will sustained her. You mariners batten down the hatch- 
ways when the heavens are dark and seas are angry. Vic- 
toria, with the same faith in her instinct, shut the avenues 
to her senses — would see nothing, hear nothing. The im- 
presario’s figure of despair touched her later. Giacinta 
drove him forth in the act of smiting his forehead with 
both hands. She did the same for Agostino and Rocco, 
who were not demonstrative. 

They knew that by this time the agents of the Govern- 
ment were in all probability ransacking their rooms, and 
confiscating their goods. 

“ Is your piano hired ? ” quoth the former. 

“ No,” said the latter, “ are your slippers ? ” 

They went their separate ways, laughing. 


CHAPTER XXI 

THE THIRD ACT 

The libretto of the Third Act was steeped in the senti- 
ment of Young Italy. I wish that I could pipe to your 
mind’s hearing any notion of the fine music of Rocco Ricci, 
and touch you to feel the revelations which were in this 
new voice. Rocco and Vittoria gave the verses a life that 
cannot belong to them now ; yet, as they contain much of 
the vital spirit of the revolt, they may assist you to some 
idea of the faith animating its heads, and may serve to 
justify this history. 

Rocco’ s music in the opera of Camilla had been sprung 
from a fresh Italian well ; neither the elegiac-melodious, nor 
the sensuous-lyrical, nor the joyous buffo; it was severe as 


THE THIRD ACT 


197 


an old masterpiece, with veins of buoyant liveliness thread- 
ing it, and with sufficient distinctness of melody to enrapture 
those who like to suck the sugar-plums of sound. He would 
indeed have favoured the public with more sweet things, but 
Yittoria, for whom the opera was composed, and who had 
been at his elbow, was young, and stern in her devotion to 
an ideal of classical music that should elevate and never 
stoop to seduce or to flatter thoughtless hearers. Her taste 
had directed as her voice had inspired the opera. Her voice 
belonged to the order of the simply great voices, and was a 
royal voice among them. Pure without attenuation, passion- 
ate without contortion, when once heard it exacted absolute 
confidence. On this night her theme and her impersonation 
were adventitious introductions, but there were passages 
when her artistic pre-eminence and the sovereign fulness 
and fire of her singing struck a note of grateful remembered 
delight. This is what the great voice does for us. It rarely 
astonishes our ears. It illumines our souls, as you see the 
lightning make the unintelligible craving darkness leap into 
long mountain ridges, and twisting vales, and spires of cities, 
and inner recesses of light within light, rose-like, toward a 
central core of violet heat. 

At the rising of the curtain the knights of the plains, 
Rudolfo, Eomualdo, Arnoldo, and others, who were con- 
spiring to overthrow Count Orso at the time when Camillo’s 
folly ruined all, assemble to deplore Camilla’s banishment, 
and show, bereft of her, their helplessness and indecision. 
They utter contempt of Camillo, who is this day to be Pon- 
tifically divorced from his wife to espouse the detested 
Miehiella. His taste is not admired. They pass off. 
Camillo appears. He is, as he knows, little better than a 
pensioner in Count Orso’s household. He holds his lands 
on sufferance. His faculties are paralyzed. He is on the 
first smooth shoulder-slope of the cataract. He knows that 
not only was his jealousy of his wife groundless, but it was 
forced by a spleenful pride. What is there to do ? H othing, 
save resignedly to prepare for his divorce from the con- 
spiratrix Camilla and espousals with Miehiella. The cup is 
bitter, and his song is mournful. He does the rarest thing 
a man will do in such a predicament — he acknowledges that 
he is going to get his deserts. The faithfulness and purity 


198 


VITTORIA 


of Camilla have struck his inner consciousness. He knows 
not where she may be. He has secretly sent messengers in 
all directions to seek her, and recover her, and obtain her 
pardon: in vain. It is as well, perhaps, that he should 
never see her more. Accursed, he has cast off his sweetest 
friend. The craven heart could never beat in unison with 
hers. 

“ She is in the darkness : I am in the light. I am a blot 
upon the light ; she is light in the darkness.” 

Montini poured this out with so fine a sentiment that the 
impatience of the house for sight of its heroine was quieted. 
But Irma and Lebruno came forward barely under tolerance. 

“We might as well be thumping a tambourine,” said 
Lebruno, during a caress. Irma bit her underlip with mor- 
tification. Their notes fell flat as bullets against a wall. 

This circumstance aroused the ire of Antonio-Pericles 
against the libretto and revolutionists. “I perceive,” he 
said, grinning savagely, “it has come to be a concert, not 
an opera; it is a musical harangue in the market-place. 
Illusion goes : it is politics here ! ” 

Carlo Ammiani was sitting with his mother and Luciano 
breathlessly awaiting the entrance of Yittoria. The inner 
box-door was rudely shaken : beneath it a slip of paper had 
been thrust. He read a warning to him to quit the house 
instantly. Luciano and his mother both counselled his 
departure. The detestable initials “B. B.,” and the one 
word “Sbirri,” revealed who had warned, and what was 
the danger. His friend’s advice and the commands of his 
mother failed to move him. “ When I have seen her safe ; 
not before,” he said. 

Countess Ammiani addressed Luciano : “ This is a young 
man’s love for a woman.” 

“ The woman is worth it,” Luciano replied. 

“No woman is worth the sacrifice of a mother and of a 
relative.” 

“ Dearest countess,” said Luciano, “ look at the pit ; it’s a 
cauldron. We shall get him out presently, have no fear : 
there will soon be hubbub enough to let Lucifer escape 
unseen. If nothing is done to-night, he and I will be off to 
the Lago di Garda to-morrow morning, and fish and shoot, 
and talk with Catullus.” 


THE THIRD ACT 


199 


The countess gazed on her son with sorrowful sternness. 
His eyes had taken that bright glazed look which is an 
indication of frozen brain and turbulent heart — madness 
that sane men enamoured can be struck by. She knew 
there was no appeal to it. 

A very dull continuous sound, like that of an angry 
swarm, or more like a rapid muffled thrumming of wires, 
was heard. The audience had caught view of a brown- 
coated soldier at one of the wings. The curious Croat had 
merely gratified a desire to have a glance at the semicircle 
of crowded heads ; he withdrew his own, but not before he 
had awakened the wild beast in the throng. Yet a little 
while and the roar of the beast would have burst out. It 
was thought that Yittoria had been seized or interdicted 
from appearing. Conspirators — the knights of the plains — 
meet : Rudolfos, Romualdos, Arnoldos, and others, — so that 
you know Camilla is not idle. She comes on in the great 
scene which closes the opera. 

It is the banqueting hall of the castle. The Pontifical 
divorce is spread upon the table. Courtly friends, guards, 
and a choric bridal company, form a circle. 

“I have obtained it/! says Count Orso : “but at a cost.” 

Leonardo, wavering eternally, lets us know that it is 
weighted with a proviso : IF Camilla shall not present 
herself within a certain term, this being the last day of it. 
Camillo comes forward. Too late, he has perceived his 
faults and weakness. He has cast his beloved from his 
arms to clasp them on despair. The choric bridal company 
gives intervening strophes. Cavaliers enter. “ Look at 
them well,” says Leonardo. They are the knights of the 
plains. “ They have come to mock me,” Camillo exclaims, 
and avoids them. 

Leonardo, Michiella, and Camillo now sing a trio that is 
tricuspidato, or a three-pointed manner of declaring their 
divergent sentiments in harmony. The fast-gathering cava- 
liers lend masculine character to the choric refrains at every 
interval. Leonardo plucks Michiella entreatingly by the 
arm. She spurns him. He has served her ; she needs him 
no more ; but she will recommend him in other quarters, 
and bids him to seek them. “ I will give thee a collar for 
thy neck, marked ‘ Faithful.’ It is the utmost I can do for 


200 


YITTOEIA 


thy species.” Leonardo thinks that he is insulted, but there 
is a vestige of doubt in him still. “ She is so fair ! she dis- 
sembles so magnificently ever ! ” She has previously told 
him that she is acting a part, as Camilla did. Irma had 
shed all her hair from a golden circlet about her temples, bar- 
barian-wi se. Some Hunnish grandeur pertained to her appear- 
ance, and partly excused the infatuated wretch who shivered 
at her disdain and exulted over her beauty and artfulness. 

In the midst of the chorus there is one veiled figure and 
one voice distinguishable. This voice outlives the rest at 
every strophe, and contrives to add a supplemental anti- 
phonic phrase that recalls in turn the favourite melodies of 
the opera. Camillo hears it, but takes it as a delusion of 
impassioned memory and a mere theme for the recurring 
melodious utterance of his regrets. Michiella hears it. She 
chimes with the third notes of Camillo’s solo to inform us 
of her suspicions that they have a serpent among them. 
Leonardo hears it. The trio is formed. Count Orso, with- 
out hearing it, makes a quatuor by inviting the bridal couple 
to go through the necessary formalities. The chorus changes 
its measure to one of hymeneals. The unknown voice closes 
it ominously with three bars in the .minor key. Michiella 
stalks close around the rank singers like an enraged daughter 
of Attila. Stopping in front of the veiled figure, she says : — 

“ Why is it thou wearest the black veil at my nuptials ? ” 

“ Because my time of mourning is not yet ended.” 

“ Thou standest the shadow in my happiness.” 

“ The bright sun will have its shadow.” 

“I desire that all rejoice this day.” 

“My hour of rejoicing approaches.” 

“ Wilt thou unveil ? ” 

“ Dost thou ask to look the storm in the face ? ” 

“ Wilt thou unveil ? ” 

“ Art thou hungry for the lightning ? ” 

“ I bid thee unveil, woman ! ” 

Michiella’s ringing shriek of command produces no 
response. 

“ It is she ! ” cries Michiella, from a contracted bosom ; 
smiting it with clenched hands. 

“ Swift to the signatures. 0 rival ! what bitterness hast 
thou come hither to taste.” 


THE THIRD ACT 


201 


Camilla sings aside : “ If yet my husband loves me and is 
true.” 

Count Orso exclaims : “ Let trumpets sound for the com- 
mencement of the festivities. The lord of his country may 
slumber while his people dance and drink ! ” 

Trumpets flourish. Witnesses are called about the table. 
Camillo, pen in hand, prepares for the supreme act. Leo- 
nardo at one wing watches the eagerness of Michiella. 
The chorus chants to a muted measure of suspense, while 
Camillo dips pen in ink. 

“ She is away from me : she scorns me : she is lost to me. 
Life without honour is the life of swine. Union without 
love is the yoke of savage beasts. 0 me miserable ! Can 
the heavens themselves plumb the depth of my degrada- 
tion ? ” 

Count Orso permits a half-tone of paternal severity to 
point his kindly hint that time is passing. When he was 
young, he says, in the broad and benevolently frisky manner, 
he would have signed ere the eye of the maiden twinkled her 
affirmative, or the goose had shed its quill. 

Camillo still trifles. Then he dashes the pen to earth. 

“ Never ! I have but one wife. Our marriage is irrevo- 
cable. The dishonoured man is the everlasting outcast. 
What are earthly possessions to me, if within myself shame 
faces me ? Let all go. Though I have lost Camilla, I will 
be worthy of her. Not a pen — no pen ; it is the sword that 
I must write with. Strike, 0 count ! I am here : I stand 
alone. By the edge of this sword, I swear that never deed 
of mine shall rob Camilla of her heritage ; though I die the 
death, she shall not weep for a craven ! ” 

The multitude break away from Camilla — veiled no more, 
but radiant ; fresh as a star that issues through corrupting 
vapours, and with her voice at a starry pitch in its clear 
ascendency : — 

“Tear up the insufferable scroll! — 

O thou, my lover and my soul! 

It is the Sword that reunites ; 

The Pen that our perdition writes.” 

She is folded in her husband’s arms. 

Michiella fronts them, horrid of aspect : — 


202 


VITTORIA 


“ Accurst divorced one ! dost thou dare 
To lie in shameless fondness there ? 

Abandoned ! on thy lying brow 
Thy name shall be imprinted now.” 

Camilla parts from lier husband’s embrace : — 

“ My name is one I do not fear ; 

’Tis one that thou wouldst shrink to hear. 

Go, cool thy penitential fires, 

Thou creature, foul with base desires ! ” 

Camillo (facing Count Orso). 

“ The choice is thine ! ” 

Count Orso (draws'). 

“ The choice is made ! ’ 

Chorus (narrowing its circle). 

“ Familiar is that naked blade. 

Of others, of himself, the fate — 

How swift ’tis Provocation’s mate ! ” 

Michiella (torn with jealous rage). 

“ Yea ; I could smite her on the face. 

Father, first read the thing’s disgrace. 

I grudge them honourable death. 

Put poison in their latest breath ! ” 

Orso (his left arm extended). 

“You twain are sundered : hear with awe 
The judgement of the Source of Law.” 

Camilla (smiling confidently). 

“Not such, when I was at the Source, 

It said to me ; — but take thy course.” 

Orso (astounded). 

“ Thither thy steps were bent? ” 

Michiella (spurning verbal controversy). 

“ She feigns ! 

A thousand swords are in my veins. 

Friends ! soldiers ! strike them down, the pair ! ” 


THE THIRD ACT 


203 


Camillo (on guard , clasping his wife). 

“ ’Tis well ! I cry, to all we share. 

Yea, life or death, ’tis well I ’tis well ! ” 

Michiella ( stamps her foot). 

“My heart’s a vessel tossed on hell ! ” 

Leonardo (aside). 

“ Not in glad nuptials ends the day.” 

Orso (to Camilla). 

“ What is thy purpose with us ? — say ! ” 

Camilla (lowly). 

“ Unto my Father I have crossed 
For tidings of my Mother lost.” 


Orso. 

“ Thy mother dead ! ” 


Camilla. 

“ She lives !” 


Michiella. 

The tablets of the tomb defiest ! 

The Fates denounce, the Furies chase 
The wretch who lies in Reason’s face.” 


“ Thou liest ! 


Camilla. 

“Fly, then ; for we are match’d to try 
Which is the idiot, thou or I.” 

Michiella. 

“ Graceless Camilla ! ” 

Orso. 

“ Senseless girl ! 

I cherished thee a precious pearl, 

And almost owned thee child of mine.” 

Camilla. 

“ Thou kept’st me like a gem, to shine, 
Careless that I of blood am made ; 

No longer be the end delay’d. 


204 


VITTORIA 


’Tis time to prove I have a heart — 

Forth from these walls of mine depart ! 
The ghosts within them are disturb’d : 

Go forth, and let thy wrath be curb’d, 
For I am strong : Camillo’s truth 
Has arm’d the visions of our youth. 

Our union by the Head Supreme 
Is blest : our severance was the dream. 
We who have drunk of blood and tears. 
Knew nothing of a mortal’s fears. 

Life is as Death until the strife 

In our just cause makes Death as Life.” 

Orso. 

“ ’Tis madness ? ” 

Leonardo. 

“Is it madness?” 


Camilla. 


“ Men ! 


’Tis Reason, but beyond your ken. 

There lives a light that none can view 
Whose thoughts are brutish : — seen by few, 
The few have therefore light divine : 

Their visions are God’s legions ! — sign, 

I give you ; for we stand alone, 

And you are frozen to the bone. 

Your palsied hands refuse their swords. 

A sharper edge is in my words, 

A deadlier wound is in my cry. 

Yea, tho’ you slay us, do we die ? 

In forcing us to bear the worst, 

You made of us Immortals first. 

Away ! and trouble not my sight.” 


Chorus of Cavaliers : Rudolfo, Romualdo, Arnoldo, and others. 

“ She moves us with an angel’s might. 

What if his host outnumber ours ! 

’Tis heaven that gives victorious powers.” 

[ They draw their steel. Orso, simulating gratitude for their devotion 
to him , addresses them as to pacify their friendly ardour. ] 

Michiella to Leonardo ( supplicating ). 

“ Ever my friend ! shall I appeal 
In vain to see thy flashing steel ? ” 


THE THIRD ACT 


205 


Leonardo {finally resolved). 

“ Traitress ! pray, rather, it may rest, 

Or its first home will be thy breast.” 

Chorus of Bridal Company. 

“ The flowers from bright Aurora’s head 
We pluck’d to strew a happy bed, 

Shall they be dipp’d in blood ere night ? 

Woe to the nuptials ! woe the sight ! ” 

Rudolfo, Romualdo, Arnoldo, and the others advance 
toward Camillo. Michiella calls to them encouragingly that 
it were well for the deed to be done by their hands. They 
bid Camillo to direct their lifted swords upon his enemies. 
Leonardo joins them. Count Orso, after a burst of upbraid- 
ings, accepts Camillo’s offer of peace, and gives his bond to 
quit the castle. Michiella, gazing savagely at Camilla, en- 
treats her for an utterance of her triumphant scorn. She 
assures Camilla that she knows her feelings accurately. 

“Now you think that I am overwhelmed; that I shall 
have a restless night, and lie, after all my crying’s over, 
with my hair spread out on my pillow, on either side my 
face, like green moss of a withered waterfall : you think you 
will bestow a little serpent of a gift from my stolen treasures 
to comfort me. You will comfort me with a lock of Camillo’s 
hair, that I may have it on my breast to-night, and dream, and 
wail, and writhe, and curse the air I breathe, and clasp the 
abominable emptiness like a thousand Camillas. Speak ! ” 

The dagger is seen gleaming up Michiella’s wrist; she 
steps on in a bony triangle, faced for mischief : a savage 
Hunnish woman, with the hair of a Goddess — the figure of 
a cat taking to its forepaws. Close upon Camilla she towers 
in her whole height, and crying thrice, swift as the assassin 
trebles his blow, “ Speak,” to Camilla, who is fronting her 
mildly, she raises her arm, and the stilet flashes into 
Camilla’s bosom. 

“Die then, and outrage me no more.” 

Camilla staggers to her husband. Camillo receives her 
falling. Michiella, seized by Leonardo, presents a stiffened 
shape of vengeance with fierce white eyes and dagger aloft. 
There are many shouts, and there is silence. 


206 


VITTORIA 


Camilla ( supported by Camillo). 

“ If this is death, it is not hard to hear. 

Your handkerchief drinks up my blood so fast 
It seems to love it. Threads of my own hair 
Are woven in it. ’Tis the one I cast 
That midnight from my window, when you stood 
Alone, and heaven seemed to love you so ! 

I did not think to wet it with my blood 
When next I tossed it to my love below.’ * 

Camillo ( cherishing her }. 

“ Camilla, pity 1 say you will not die. 

Your voice is like a soul lost in the sky.” 

Camilla. 

“ I know not if my soul has flown ; I know 
My body is a weight I cannot raise : 

My voice between them issues, and I go 
Upon a journey of uncounted days. 

Forgetfulness is like a closing sea ; 

But you are very bright above me still. 

My life I give as it was given to me : 

I enter on a darkness wide and chill.” 

Camillo. 

“ O noble heart ! a million fires consume 
The hateful hand that sends you to your doom.” 

Camilla. 

“There is an end to joy : there is no end 
To striving ; therefore ever let us strive 
In purity that shall the toil befriend, 

And keep our poor mortality alive. 

I hang upon the boundaries like light 
Along the hills when downward goes the day ; 

I feel the silent creeping up of night. 

For you, my husband, lies a flaming way.” 

Camillo. 

“ I lose your eyes : I lose your voice : ’tis faint. 
Ah, Christ ! see the fallen eyelids of a saint.” 

Camilla. 

“Our life is but a little holding, lent 
To do a mighty labour : we are one 
With heaven and the stars when it is spent 
To serve God’s aim : else die we with the sun.” 


THE THIRD ACT 


207 


She sinks. Camillo droops his head above her. 

The house was hushed as at a veritable death-scene. It 
was more like a cathedral service than an operatic pageant. 
Agostino had done his best to put the heart of the creed of 
his Chief into these last verses.' Bocco’s music floated them 
in solemn measures, and Vittoria had been careful to arti- 
culate throughout the sacred monotony so that their full 
meaning should be taken. 

In the printed book of the libretto a chorus of cavaliers, 
followed by one harmless verse of Camilla’s adieux to them, 
and to her husband and life, concluded the opera. 

“Let her stop at that — it’s enough! — and she shall be 
untouched,” said General Pierson to Antonio-Pericles. “ I 
have information, as you know, that an extremely impudent 
song is coming.” 

The General saw Wilfrid hanging about the lobby, in 
flagrant disobedience to orders. Bebuking his nephew with 
a frown, he commanded the lieutenant to make his way round 
to the stage and see that the curtain was dropped according 
to the printed book. 

“ Off, mon Dieu ! off ! ” Pericles speeded him ; adding in 
English, “ Shall she taste prison-damp, zat voice is killed.” 

The chorus of cavaliers was a lamentation : the key-note 
being despair : ordinary libretto verses. 

Camilla’s eyes unclose. She struggles to be lifted, and, 
raised on Camillo’s arm, she sings as with the last pulsation 
of her voice, softly resonant in its rich contralto. She par- 
dons Michiella. She tells Count Orso that when he has 
extinguished his appetite for dominion, he will enjoy an 
unknown pleasure in the friendship of his neighbours. 
Bepeating that her mother lives, and will some day kneel 
by her daughter’s grave — not mournfully, but in beatitude 
— she utters her adieu to all. 

At the moment of her doing so, Montini whispered in 
Yittoria’s ear. She looked up and beheld the downward 
curl of the curtain. There was confusion at the wings : 
Croats were visible to the audience. Carlo Ammiani and 
Luciano Bomara jumped on the stage; a dozen of the noble 
youths of Milan streamed across the boards to either wing, 
and caught the curtain descending. The whole house had 
risen insurgent with cries of “Vittoria.” The curtain-ropes 


208 


VITTORIA 


were in the hands of the Croats, but Carlo, Luciano, and 
their fellows held the curtain aloft at arm’s length at each 
side of her. She was seen, and she sang, and the house 
listened. 

The Italians present, one and all, rose up reverently and 
murmured the refrain. Many of the aristocracy would, 
doubtless, have preferred that this public declaration of the 
plain enigma should not have rung forth to carry them on 
the popular current; and some might have sympathized 
with the insane grin which distorted the features of Antonio- 
Pericles, when he beheld illusion wantonly destroyed, and 
the opera reduced to be a mere vehicle for a fulmination of 
politics. But the general enthusiasm was too tremendous 
to permit of individual protestations. To sit, when the nation 
was standing, was to be a German. Nor, indeed, was there 
an Italian in the house who would willingly have consented 
to see Yittoria silenced, now that she had chosen to defy the 
Tedeschi from the boards of La Scala. The fascination of 
her voice extended even over the German division of the 
audience. They, with the Italians, said : “ Hear her ! hear 
her ! ” The curtain was agitated at the wings, but in the 
centre it was kept above Yittoria’s head by the uplifted arms 
of the twelve young men : — 

“I cannot count the years, 

That you will drink, like me, 

The cup of blood and tears, 

Ere she to you appears : — 

Italia , Italia shall be free!” 

So the great name was out, and its enemies had heard it. 

“You dedicate your lives 
To her, and you will be 
The food on which she thrives, 

Till her great day arrives : — 

Italia , Italia shall be free!” 

“ She asks you but for faith ! 

Your faith in her takes she 
As draughts of heaven’s breath, 

Amid defeat and death : — 

Italia , Italia shall be free!' Y 


WILFRID COMES FORWARD . 


209 


The prima donna was not acting exhaustion when sinking 
lower in Montini’s arms. Her bosom rose and sank quickly, 
and she gave the terminating verse : — 

“ I enter the black boat 

Upon the wide grey sea, 

Where all her set suns float ; 

Thence hear my voice remote : — 

Italia, Italia shall he free /” 

The curtain dropped. 


CHAPTER XXII 

WILFRID COMES FORWARD 

An order for the immediate arrest of Yittoria was brought 
round to the stage at the fall of the curtain by Captain 
Weisspriess, and delivered by him on the stage to the officer 
commanding, a pothered lieutenant of Croats, whose first 
proceeding was dictated by the military instinct to get his 
men in line, and who was utterly devoid, of any subsequent 
idea. The thunder of the house on the other side of the 
curtain was enough to disconcert a youngster such as he 
was ; nor have the subalterns of Croat regiments a very 
signal reputation for efficiency in the Austrian service. 
Yittoria stood among her supporters apart; pale, and “only 
very thirsty/’ as she told the enthusiastic youths who pressed 
near her, and implored her to have no fear. Carlo was on 
her right hand ; Luciano on her left. They kept her from 
going off to her room. Montini was despatched to fetch her 
maid Giacinta with cloak and hood for her mistress. The 
young lieutenant of Croats drew his sword, but hesitated. 
Weisspriess, Wilfrid, and Major de Pyrmont were at one 
wing, between the Italian gentlemen and the soldiery. The 
operatic company had fallen into the background, or stood 
crowding the side places of exit. Yittoria’ s name was being 
shouted with that angry, sea-like, horrid monotony of itera- 
tion which is more suggestive of menacing impatience and 
the positive will of the people, than varied, sharp, imperative 


210 


VITTOBIA 


calls. The people had got the lion, in their throats. One 
shriek from her would bring them, like a torrent, on the 
boards, as the officers well knew ; and every second’s delay 
in executing the orders of the General added to the difficulty 
of their position. The lieutenant of Croats strode up to 
Weisspriess and Wilfrid, who were discussing a plan of action 
vehemently ; while, amid hubbub and argument, De Pyrmont 
studied Yittoria’s features through his opera-glass, with an 
admirable simple languor. 

Wilfrid turned back to him, and De Pyrmont, without 
altering the level of his glass, said, “ She’s as cool as a lemon- 
ice. That girl will be a mother of heroes. To have volcanic 
fire and the mastery of her nerves at the same time, is some- 
thing prodigious. She is magnificent. Take a peep at her. 
I suspect that the rascal at her right is seizing his occasion 
to plant a trifle or so in her memory — the animal ! It’s 
just the moment, and he knows it.” 

De Pyrmont looked at Wilfrid’s face. 

“ Have I hit you anywhere accidentally ? ” he asked, for 
the face had grown dead-white. 

“ Be my friend, for heaven’s sake ! ” was the choking 
answer. “Save her! Get her away! She is an old 
acquaintance of mine — of mine, in England. Do; or I 
shall have to break my sword.” 

“ You know her ? and you don’t go over to her ? ” said 
De Pyrmont. 

“I — yes, she knows me.” 

“ Then, why not present yourself ? ” 

“ Get her away. Talk Weisspriess down. He is for seiz- 
ing her at all hazards. It’s madness to provoke a conflict. 
J ust listen to the house ! I may be broken, but save her I 
will. De Pyrmont, on my honour, I will stand by you for 
ever if you will help me to get her away.” 

“ To suggest my need in the hour of your own is not a bad 
notion,” said the cool Frenchman. “ What plan have you ? ” 

Wilfrid struck his forehead miserably. 

“ Stop Lieutenant Zettlisch. Don’t let him go up to her. 
Don’t ” 

De Pyrmont beheld in astonishment that a speechlessness 
such as affects condemned wretches in the supreme last 
minutes of existence had come upon the Englishman. 


WILFRID COMES FORWARD 


211 


“ I’m afraid yours is a bad case,” he said ; “ and the worst 
of it is, it’s just the case women have no compassion for. 
Here comes a parlementaire from the opposite camp. Let’s 
hear him.” 

It was Luciano Romara. He stood before them to request 
that the curtain should be raised. The officers debated 
together, and deemed it prudent to yield consent. 

Luciano stipulated further that the soldiers were to be 
withdrawn. 

“ On one wing, or on both wings ? ” said Captain Weiss- 
priess, twinkling eyes oblique. 

“ Out of the house,” said Luciano. 

The officers laughed. 

“You must confess,” said De Pyrmont, affably, “that 
though the drum does issue command to the horse, it 
scarcely thinks of doing so after a rent in the skin has 
shown its emptiness. Can you suppose that we are likely 
to run when we see you empty-handed ? These things are 
matters of calculation.” 

“ It is for you to calculate correctly,” said Luciano. 

As he spoke, a first surge of the exasperated house broke 
upon the staga and smote the curtain, which burst into 
white zig-zags, as it were a breast stricken with panic. 

Giacinta came running in to her mistress, and cloaked 
and hooded her hurriedly. 

Enamoured, impassioned, Ammiani murmured in Yit- 
toria’s ear: “My own soul!” 

She replied : “ My lover ! ” 

So their first love-speech was interchanged with Italian 
simplicity, and made a divine circle about them in the 
storm. 

Luciano returned to his party to inform them that they 
held the key of the emergency. 

“Stick fast,” he said. “Hone of you move. Whoever 
takes the first step takes the false step; I see that.” 

“We have no arms, Luciano.” 

“We have the people behind us.” 

There was a fiercer tempest in the body of the house, and, 
on a sudden, silence. Men who had invaded the stage joined 
the Italian guard surrounding Yittoria, telling that the lights 
had been extinguished ; and then came the muffled uproar of 


212 


YITTORIA 


universal confusion. Some were for handing her down into 
the orchestra, and getting her out through the general vomi- 
torium, but Carlo and Luciano held her firmly by them. The 
theatre was a raging darkness ; and there was barely a light 
on the stage. “ Santa Maria ! ” cried Giacinta, “ how dread- 
ful that steel does look in the dark ! I wish our sweet boys 
would cry louder.” Her mistress, almost laughing, bade her 
keep close, and be still. “ Oh ! this must be like being at 
sea,” the poor creature whined, stopping her ears and shut- 
ting her eyes. Yittoria was in a thick gathering of her 
defenders; she could just hear that a parley was going on 
between Luciano and the Austrians. Luciano made his way 
back to her. “ Quick,” he said ; “ nothing cows a mob like 
darkness. One of these officers tells me he knows you, and 
gives his word of honour — he’s an Englishman — to con- 
duct you out : come.” 

Yittoria placed her hands in Carlo’s one instant. Luciano 
cleared a space for them. She heard a low English voice. 

“ You do not recognize me ? There is no time to lose. 
You had another name once, and I have had the honour to 
call you by it.” 

“ Are you an Austrian ? ” she exclaimed, and Carlo felt 
that she was shrinking back. 

“ I am the Wilfrid Pole whom you knew. You are en- 
trusted to my charge ; I have sworn to conduct you to the 
doors in safety, whatever it may cost me.” 

Yittoria looked at him mournfully. Her eyes filled with 
tears. “ The night is spoiled for me ! ” she murmured. 

“ Emilia!” 

“ That is not my name.” 

“ I know you by no other. Have mercy on me. I would 
do anything in the world to serve you.” 

Major de Pyrmont came up to him and touched his arm. 
He said briefly : “We shall have a collision, to a certainty, 
unless the people hear from one of her set that she is out of 
the house.” 

Wilfrid requested her to confide her hand to him. 

“ My hand is engaged,” she said. 

Bowing ceremoniously, Wilfrid passed on, and Yittoria, 
with Carlo and Luciano and her maid Giacinta, followed 
between files of bayonets through the dusky passages, and 
downstairs into the night air. 


WILFRID COMES FORWARD 213 

Yittoria spoke in Carlo’s ear: “I have been unkind to 
him. I had a great affection for him in England.” 

“ Thank him ; thank him,” said Carlo. 

She quitted her lover’s side and went up to Wilfrid with 
a shyly extended hand. A carriage was drawn up by the 
kerbstone ; the doors of it were open. She had barely made 
a word intelligible, when Major de Pyrmont pointed to some 
officers approaching. “ Get her out of the way while there’s 
time,” he said in French to Luciano. " This is her carriage. 
Swiftly, gentlemen, or she’s lost.” 

Giacinta read his meaning by signs, and caught her mis- 
tress by the sleeve, using force. She and Major de Pyrmont 
placed Yittoria, bewildered, in the carriage; De Pyrmont 
shut the door, and signalled to the coachman. Yittoria 
thrust her head out for a last look at her lover, and beheld 
him with the arms of dark -clothed men upon him. La Scala 
was pouring forth its occupants in struggling roaring shoals 
from every door. Her outcry returned to her deadened in 
the rapid rolling of the carriage across the lighted Piazza. 
Giacinta had to hold her down with all her might. Great 
clamour was for one moment heard by them, and then a 
rushing voicelessness. Giacinta screamed to the coachman 
till she was exhausted. Yittoria sank shuddering on the 
lap of her maid, hiding her face that she might plunge out 
of recollection. 

The lightnings shot across her brain, but wrote no legible 
thing; the scenes of the opera lost their outlines as in a 
white heat of fire. She tried to weep, and vainly asked her 
heart for tears, that this dry dreadful blind misery of mere 
sensation might be washed out of her, and leave her mind 
clear to grapple with evil ; and then, as the lurid breaks 
come in a storm-driven night sky, she had the picture of 
her lover in the hands of enemies, and of Wilfrid in the 
white uniform; the torment of her living passion, the 
mockery of her passion by-gone. Recollection, when it 
came back, overwhelmed her ; she swayed from recollection 
to oblivion, and was like a caged wild thing. Giacinta had 
to be as a mother with her. The poor trembling girl, who 
had begun to perceive that the carriage was bearing them 
to some unknown destination, tore open the bands of her 
corset and drew her mistress’s head against the full warmth 


214 


VITTORIA 


of her bosom, rocked her, and moaned over her, mixing com- 
fort and lamentation in one offering, and so contrived to draw 
the tears out from her, — a storm of tears ; not fitfully hysteri- 
cal, but tears that poured a black veil over the eyeballs, and 
fell steadily streaming. Once subdued by the weakness, 
Vittoria’s nature melted; she shook piteously with weep- 
ing ; she remembered Laura’s words, and thought of what 
she had done, in terror and remorse, and tried to ask if the 
people would be fighting now, but could not. Laura seemed 
to stand before her like a Fury stretching her finger at the 
dear brave men whom she had hurled upon the bayonets and 
the guns. It was an unendurable anguish. Giacinta was 
compelled to let her cry, and had to reflect upon their pres- 
ent situation unaided. They had passed the city gates. 
Voices on the coachman’s box had given German pass- 
words. She would have screamed then had not the car- 
riage seemed to her a sanctuary from such creatures as 
foreign soldiers, whitecoats; so she cowered on. They 
were in the starry open country, on the high-road between 
the vine-hung mulberry trees. She held the precious head 
of her mistress, praying the Saints that strength would soon 
come to her to talk of their plight, or chatter a little com- 
fortingly at least ; and but for the singular sweetness which 
it shot thrilling to her woman’s heart, she would have been 
fretted when Vittoria, after one long-drawn wavering sob, 
turned her lips to the bared warm breast, and put a little 
kiss upon it, and slept. 


CHAPTER XXIII 

FIRST HOURS OF THE FLIGHT 

Vittoria slept on like an outworn child, while Giacinta 
nodded over her, and started, and wondered what em- 
bowelled mountain they might be passing through, so cold 
was the air and thick the darkness; and wondered more 
at the old face of dawn, which appeared to know nothing of 
her agitation. But morning was better than night, and she 
ceased counting over her sins forward and backward ; adding 


FIRST HOURS OF THE FLIGHT 


215 


comments on them, excusing some and admitting the turpi- 
tude of others, with “ Oh ! I was naughty, padre mio ! I was 
naughty : ” — she huddled them all into one of memory’s 
spare sacks, and tied the neck of it, that they should keep 
safe for her father-confessor. At such times, after a tumult 
of the blood, women have tender delight in one another’s 
beauty. Giacinta doted on the marble cheek, upturned on 
her lap, with the black unbound locks slipping across it ; 
the braid of the coronal of hair loosening ; the chance flit- 
ting movement of the pearly little dimple that lay at the 
edge of the bow of the joined lips, like the cradling hollow 
of a dream. At whiles it would twitch ; yet the dear eye- 
lids continued sealed. 

Looking at shut eyelids when you love the eyes beneath, 
is more or less a teazing mystery that draws down your 
mouth to kiss them. Their lashes seem to answer you in 
some way with infantine provocation; and fine eyelashes 
upon a face bent sideways, suggest a kind of internal smil- 
ing. Giacinta looked till she coul'd bear it no longer ; she 
kissed the cheek, and crooned over it, gladdened by a sense 
of jealous possession when she thought of the adored thing 
her mistress had been overnight. One of her hugs awoke 
Yittoria, who said, “ Shut my window, mother,” and slept 
again fast. Giacinta saw that they were nearer to the 
mountains. Mountain-shadows were thrown out, and long 
lank shadows of cypresses that climbed up reddish-yellow 
undulations, told of the sun coming. The sun threw a blaze 
of light into the carriage. He shone like a good friend, and 
helped Giacinta think, as she had already been disposed to 
imagine, that the machinery by which they had been caught 
out of Milan was amicable magic after all, and not to be 
screamed at. The sound medicine of sleep and sunlight was 
restoring livelier colour to her mistress. Giacinta hushed 
her now, but Yittoria’s eyes opened, and settled on her, full 
of repose. 

“What are you thinking about?” she asked. 

“ Signorina, my own, I was thinking whether those people 
I see on the hill-sides are as fond of coffee as I am.” 

Yittoria sat up and tumbled questions out headlong, 
pressing her eyes and gathering her senses; she shook 
with a few convulsions, but shed no tears. It was rather 


216 


VITTORIA 


the discomfort of their position than any vestige of alarm 
which prompted Giacinta to project her head and interrogate 
the coachman and chasseur. She drew back, saying, “ Holy 
Virgin ! they are Germans. We are to stop in half-an-hour.” 
With that she put her hands to use in arranging and smooth- 
ing Vittoria’ s hair and dress — the dress of Camilla — of 
which triumphant heroine Vittoria felt herself an odd little 
ghost now. She changed her seat that she might look back 
on Milan. A letter was spied fastened with a pin to one of 
the cushions. She opened it, and read in pencil writing : — • 

“ Go quietly. You have done all that you could do for 
good or for ill. The carriage will take you to a safe place, 
where you will soon see your friends and hear the news. 
Wait till you reach Meran. You will see a friend from 
England. Avoid the lion’s jaw a second time. Here you 
compromise everybody. Submit, or your friends will take 
you for a mad girl. Be satisfied. It is an Austrian ivho 
rescues you. Think yourself no longer appointed to put 
match to powder. Drown yourself if a second frenzy comes. 
I feel I could still love your body if the obstinate soul were 
out of it. You know who it is that writes. I might sign 
‘Michiella’ to this: I have a sympathy with her anger at 
the provoking Camilla. Addio! From La Scala.” 

The lines read as if Laura were uttering them. Wrap- 
ping her cloak across the silken opera garb, Vittoria leaned 
back passively until the carriage stopped at a village inn, 
where Giacinta made speedy arrangements to satisfy as 
far as possible her mistress’s queer predilection for bathing 
her whole person daily in cold water. The household ser- 
vice of the inn recovered from the effort to assist her suffi- 
ciently to produce hot coffee and sweet bread, and new 
green-streaked stracchino, the cheese of the district, which 
was the morning meal of the fugitives. Giacinta, who had 
never been so thirsty in her life, became intemperately re- 
freshed, and was seized by the fatal desire to do something: 
to do what she could not tell; but chancing to see that her 
mistress had silken slippers on her feet, she protested loudly 
that stouter foot-gear should be obtained for her, and ran 
out to circulate inquiries concerning a shoemaker who might 
have a pair of country overshoes for sale. She returned to 
say that the coachman and his comrade, the German chas- 


FIRST HOURS OF THE FLIGHT 


217 


seur, were drinking and watering their horses, and were not 
going to start until after a rest of two hours, and that she 
proposed to walk to a small Bergamasc town within a couple 
of miles of the village, where the shoes could be obtained, 
and perhaps a stuff to replace the silken dress. Receiving 
consent, Giacinta whispered, “A man outside wishes to 
speak to you, signorina. Don’t be frightened. He pounced 
on me at the end of the village, and had as little breath to 
speak as a boy in love. He was behind us all last night 
on the carriage. He mentioned you by name. He is quite 
commonly dressed, but he’s a gallant gentleman, and exactly 
like our signor Carlo. My dearest lady, he’ll be company 
for you while I am absent. May I beckon him to come 
into the room?” 

Vittoria supposed at once that this was a smoothing of 
the way for the entrance of her lover and her joy. She 
stood up, letting all her strength go that he might the more 
justly take her and cherish her. But it was not Carlo who 
entered. So dead fell her broken hope that her face was 
repellent with the effort she made to support herself. He 
said, “I address the signorina Vittoria. I am a relative 
of Countess Ammiani. My name is Angelo Guidascarpi. 
Last night I was evading the sbirri in this disguise by the 
private door of La Scala, from which I expected Carlo to 
come forth. I saw him seized in mistake for me. I jumped 
up on the empty box-seat behind your carriage. Before we 
entered the village I let myself down. If I am seen and 
recognized, I am lost, and great evil will befall Countess 
Ammiani and her son; but if they are unable to confront 
Carlo and me, my escape ensures his safety.” 

“What can I do?” said Vittoria. 

He replied, “ Shall I answer you by telling you what I 
have done?” 

“You need not, signore.” 

“Enough that I want to keep a sword fresh for my 
country. I am at your mercy, signorina; and I am with- 
out anxiety. I heard the chasseur saying at the door of 
La Scala that he had the night-pass for the city gates and 
orders for the Tyrol. Once in Tyrol I leap into Switzer- 
land. I should have remained in Milan, but nothing will 
be done there yet, and quiet cities are not homes for me.” 


218 


VITTORIA 


Yittoria began to admit the existence of his likeness to 
her lover, though it seemed to her a guilty weakness that 
she should see it. 

“ Will nothing be done in Milan?” was her first eager 
question. 

“Nothing, signorina, or I should be there, and safe.” 

“What, signore, do you require me to help you in?” 

“Say that I am your servant.” 

“ And take you with me?” 

“Such is my petition.” 

“Is the case very urgent?” 

“Hardly more, as regards myself, than a sword lost to 
Italy if I am discovered. But, signorina, from what 
Countess Ammiani has told me, I believe that you will 
some day be my relative likewise. Therefore I appeal 
not only to a charitable lady, but to one of my own 
family.” 

Vittoria reddened. “All that I can do I will do.” 

Angelo had to assure her that Carlo’s release was certain 
the moment his identity was established. She breathed 
gladly, saying, “ I wonder at it all very much. I do not 
know where they are carrying me, but I think I am in 
friendly hands. I owe you a duty. You will permit me 
to call you Beppo till our journey ends.” 

They were attracted to the windows by a noise of a 
horseman drawing rein under it, whose imperious shout 
for the innkeeper betrayed the soldier’s habit of exacting 
prompt obedience from civilians, though there was no mili- 
tary character in his attire. The innkeeper and his wife 
came out to the summons, and then both made way for the 
chasseur in attendance on Vittoria. With this man the 
cavalier conversed. 

“Have you had food?” said Yittoria. “I have some 
money that will serve for both of us three days. Go, and 
eat and drink. Pay for us both.” 

She gave him her purse. He received it with a grave 
servitorial bow, and retired. 

Soon after the chasseur brought up a message. Herr 
Johannes requested that he might have the honour of pre- 
senting his homage to her : it was imperative that he should 
see her. She nodded. Her first glance at Herr Johannes 


FIRST HOURS OF THE FLIGHT 


219 


assured her of his being one of the officers whom she had 
seen on the stage last night, and she prepared to act her 
part. Herr Johannes desired her to recall to mind his 
introduction to her by the signor Antonio-Pericles at the 
house of the maestro Eocco Eicci. “ It is true ; pardon me,” 
said Yittoria. 

He informed her that she had surpassed herself at the 
opera; so much so that he and many other Germans had 
been completely conquered by her. Hearing, he said, that 
she was to be pursued, he took horse and galloped all night 
on the road toward Schloss Sonnenberg, whither, as it had 
been whispered to him, she was flying, in order to counsel 
her to lie perdu for a short space, and subsequently to con- 
duct her to the schloss of the amiable duchess. Vittoria 
thanked him, but stated humbly that she preferred to travel 
alone. He declared that it was impossible : that she was 
precious to the world of Art, and must on no account be 
allowed to run into peril. Yittoria -tried to assert her will; 
she found it unstrung. She thought besides that this dis- 
guised officer, with the ill-looking eyes running into one, 
might easily, since he had heard her, be a devotee of her 
voice ; and it flattered her yet more to imagine him as a 
capture from the enemy — a vanquished subservient Aus- 
trian. She had seen him come on horseback; he had 
evidently followed her; and he knew what she now un- 
derstood must be her destination. Moreover, Laura had 
underlined “ it is an Austrian who rescues you” This man 
perchance was the Austrian. His precise manner of speech 
demanded an extreme repugnance, if it was to be resisted; 
Yittoria’ s reliance upon her own natural fortitude was 
much too secure for her to encourage the physical revul- 
sions which certain hard faces of men create in the hearts 
of young women. 

“Was all quiet in Milan?” she asked. 

“Quiet as a pillow,” he said. 

“And will continue to be?” 

“Not a doubt of it.” 

“Why is there not a doubt of it, signore?” 

“You beat us Germans on one field. On the other you 
have no chance. But you must lose no time. The Croats 
are on your track. I have ordered out the carriage.” 


220 


YITTORIA 


The mention of the Croats struck her fugitive senses with 
a panic. 

“I must wait for my maid,” she said, attempting to 
deliberate. 

“Ha! you have a maid: of course you have! Where is 
your maid? ” 

“ She ought to have returned by this time. If not, she is 
on the road.” 

“On the road? Good; we will pick up the maid on the 
road. We have not a minute to spare. Lady, I am your 
obsequious servant. Hasten out, I beg of you. I was 
taught at my school that minutes are not to be wasted. 
Those Croats have been drinking and what not on the way, 
or they would have been here before this. You can’t rely 
on Italian innkeepers to conceal you.” 

“ Signore, are you a man of honour? ” 

“Illustrious lady, I am.” 

She listened simply to the response without giving heed 
to the prodigality of gesture. The necessity for flight now 
that Milan was announced as lying quiet, had become her 
sole thought. Angelo was standing by the carriage. 

“What man is this?” said Herr Johannes frowning. 

“He is my servant,” said Yittoria. 

“My dear good lady, you told me your servant was a 
maid. This will never do. We can’t have him.” 

“Excuse me, signore, I never travel without him.” 

“ Travel ! This is not a case of travelling, but running ; 
and when you run, if you are in earnest about it, you must 
fling away your baggage and arms.” 

Herr Johannes tossed out his moustache to right and 
left, and stamped his foot. He insisted that the man 
should be left behind.” 

“Off, sir! back to Milan, or elsewhere,” he cried. 

“Beppo, mount on the box,” said Yittoria. 

Her command was instantly obeyed. Herr Johannes 
looked her in the face. “You are very decided, my dear 
lady.” He seemed to have lost his own decision, but hand- 
ing Yittoria in, he drew a long cigar from his breast-pocket, 
lit it, and mounted beside the coachman. The chasseur had 
disappeared. 

Yittoria entreated that a general look-out should be kept 


FIRST HOURS OF THE FLIGHT 


221 


for Giacinta. The road was straight up an ascent, and she 
had no fear that her maid would not be seen. Presently 
there was a view of the violet domes of a city. “Is it 
Bergamo? — is it Brescia?” she longed to ask, thinking of 
her Bergamasc and Brescian friends, and of those two places 
famous for the bravery of their sons : one being especially 
dear to her, as the birthplace of a genius of melody, whose 
blood was in her veins. “ Did he look on these mulberry 
trees? — did he look on these green-grassed valleys? — did 
he hear these falling waters? ” she asked herself, and closed 
her spirit with reverential thoughts of him and with his 
music. She saw sadly that they were turning from the 
city. A little ball of paper was shot into her lap. She 
opened it and read: “An officer of the cavalry. — Beppo.” 
She put her hand out of the window to signify that she was 
awake to the situation. Her anxiety, however, began to 
fret. No sight of Giacinta was to be had in any direction. 
Her mistress commenced chiding the absent garrulous 
creature, and did so until she pitied her, when she accused 
herself of cowardice, for she was incapable of calling out 
to the coachman to stop. The rapid motion subdued such 
energy as remained to her, and she willingly allowed her 
hurried feelings to rest on the faces of rocks impending 
over long ravines, and of perched old castles and white 
villas and sub- Alpine herds. She burst from the fascina- 
tion as from a dream, but only to fall into it again, reproach- 
ing her weakness, and saying, “What a thing am I!” 
When she did make her voice heard by Herr Johannes and 
the coachman, she was nervous and ashamed, and met the 
equivocating pacification of the reply with an assent half- 
way, though she was far from comprehending the consolation 
she supposed that it was meant to convey. She put out her 
hand to communicate with Beppo. Another ball of pen- 
cilled writing answered to it. She read: “Keep watch on 
this Austrian. Your maid is two hours in the rear. De- 
fuse to be separated from me. My life is at your service. • — 
Beppo.” 

Vittoria made her final effort to get a resolve of some 
sort; ending it with a compassionate exclamation over poor 
Giacinta. The girl could soon find her way back to Milan. 
On the other hand, the farther from Milan, the less the 


222 


YITTOKIA 


danger to Carlo’s relative, in whom she now perceived a 
stronger likeness to her lover. She sank back in the car- 
riage and closed her eyes. Though she smiled at the vanity 
of forcing sleep in this way, sleep came. Her healthy 
frame seized its natural medicine to rebuild her after the 
fever of recent days. 

She slept till the rocks were purple, and rose-purple mists 
were in the valleys. The stopping of the carriage aroused 
her. They were at the threshold of a large wayside hos- 
telry, fronting a slope of forest and a plunging brook. 
Whitecoats in all attitudes leaned about the door; she 
beheld the inner court full of them. Herr Johannes was 
ready to hand her to the ground. He said: “You have 
nothing to fear. These fellows are on the march to Cre- 
mona. Perhaps it will be better if you are served up in 
your chamber. You will be called early in the morning.” 

She thanked him, and felt grateful. “Beppo, look to 
yourself,” she said, and ran to her retirement. 

“I fancy that’s about all that you are fit for,” Herr 
Johannes remarked, with his eyes on the impersonator of 
Beppo, who bore the scrutiny carelessly, and after seeing 
that Yittoria had left nothing on the carriage-seats, directed 
his steps to the kitchen, as became his functions. Herr 
Johannes beckoned to a Tyrolese maid-servant, of whom 
Beppo had asked his way. She gave her name as Katchen. 

“ Katchen, Katchen, my sweet chuck, ” said Herr J ohannes, 
“ here are ten florins for you, in silver, if you will get me 
the handkerchief of that man : you have just stretched your 
finger out for him.” 

According to the common Austrian reckoning of them, 
Herr Johannes had adopted the right method for ensuring 
the devotion of the maidens of Tyrol. She responded with 
an amazed gulp of her mouth and a grimace of acquiescence. 
Ten florins in silver shortened the migratory term of the 
mountain girl by full three months. Herr Johannes asked 
her the hour when the officers in command had supper, and 
deferred his own meal till that time. Katchen set about 
earning her money. With any common Beppo it would 
have been easy enough — simple barter for a harmless kiss. 
But this Beppo appeared inaccessible; he was so courtly 
and so reserved; nor is a maiden of Tyrol a particularly 


FIRST HOURS OF THE FLIGHT 


223 


skilled seductress. The supper of the officers was smoking 
on the table when Herr Johannes presented himself among 
them, and very soon the inn was shaken with an uproar of 
greeting. Katchen found Beppo listening at the door of 
the salle. She clapped her hands upon him to drag him 
away. 

“What right have you to be leaning your head there?” 
she said, and threatened to make his proceedings known. 
Beppo had no jewel to give, little money to spare. He had 
just heard Herr Johannes welcomed among the officers by 
a name that half paralyzed him. “You shall have any- 
thing you ask of me if you will find me out in a couple of 
hours,” he said. Katchen nodded truce for that period, 
and saw her home in the Oberinnthal still nearer — twelve 
mountain goats and a cow her undisputed property. She 
found him out, though he had strayed through the court of 
the inn, and down a hanging garden to the borders of a 
torrent that drenched the air and sounded awfully in the 
dark ravine below. He embraced her very mildly. “ One 
scream and you go,” he said; she felt the saving hold of 
her feet plucked from her, with all the sinking horror, and 
bit her underlip, as if keeping in the scream with bare 
stitches. When he released her she was perfectly mastered. 
“You do play tricks,” she said, and quaked. 

“ I play no tricks. Tell me at what hour these soldiers 
march.” 

“At two in the morning.” 

“Don’t be afraid, silly child: you’re safe if you obey me. 
At what time has our carriage been ordered? ” 

“At four.” 

“Now swear to do this : — rouse my mistress at a quarter 
past two: bring her down to me.” 

“Yes, yes,” said Katchen, eagerly: “give me your hand- 
kerchief, and she will follow me. I do swear; that I do; 
by big St. Christopher! who’s painted on the walls of our 
house at home.” 

Beppo handed her sweet silver, which played a lively 
tune for her temporarily-vanished cow and goats. Peering 
at her features in the starlight, he let her take the handker- 
chief from his pocket. 

“Oh! what have you got in there?” she said. 


224 


VITTORIA 


He laid his finger across her month, bidding her return 
to the house. 

“Dear heaven!” Katchen went in murmuring; “would 
I have gone out to that soft-looking young man if I had 
known he was a devil.” 

Angelo Guidascarpi was aware that an officer without 
responsibility never sleeps faster than when his brothers- 
in-arms have to be obedient to the reveillee. At two in 
the morning the bugle rang out: many lighted cigars were 
flashing among the dark passages of the inn ; the whitecoats 
were disposed in marching order; hot coffee was hastily 
swallowed; the last stragglers from the stables, the out- 
houses, the court, and the straw beds under roofs of rock, 
had gathered to the main body. The march set forward. A 
pair of officers sent a shout up to the drowsy windows, 
“ Good luck to you, Weisspriess! ” Angelo descended from 
the concealment of the opposite trees, where he had sta- 
tioned himself to watch the departure. The inn was like 
a sleeper who has turned over. He made Katchen bring 
him bread and slices of meat and a flask of wine, which 
things found a place in his pockets: and paying for his 
mistress and himself, he awaited Yittoria’s foot on the 
stairs. When Yittoria came she asked no questions, but 
said to Katchen, “You may kiss me; ” and Katchen began 
crying; she believed that they were lovers daring every- 
thing for love. 

“You have a clear start of an hour and a half. Leave 
the high-road then, and turn left through the forest and 
ask for Bormio. If you reach Tyrol, and come to Silz, tell 
people that you know Katchen Giesslinger, and they will 
be kind to you.” 

So saying, she let them out into the black-eyed starlight. 


ADVENTURES OF VITTORIA AND ANGELO 225 


CHAPTER XXIV 

ADVENTURES OF VITTORIA AND ANGELO 

Nothing was distinguishable for the flying couple save 
the high-road winding under rock and forest, and here and 
there a coursing water in the depths of the ravines, that 
showed like a vein in black marble. They walked swiftly, 
keeping brisk ears for sound of hoof or foot behind them. 
Angelo promised her that she should rest after the morning 
light had come ; but she assured him that she could bear 
fatigue, and her firm cheerfulness lent his heart vigour. 
At times they were hooded with the darkness, which came 
on them as if, as benighted children fancy, their faces were 
about to meet the shaggy breast of the forest. Rising up 
to lighter air, they had sight of distant twinklings: it 
might be city, or autumn weed, or fires of the woodmen, or 
beacon fires : they glimmered like eyelets to the mystery of 
the vast unseen land. Innumerable brooks went talking to 
the night : torrents in seasons of rain, childish voices now, 
with endless involutions of a song of three notes and a sort 
of unnoted clanging chorus, as if a little one sang and would 
sing on through the thumping of a tambourine and bells. 
Vittoria had these fancies: Angelo had none. He walked 
like a hunted man whose life is at stake. 

“ If we reach a village soon we may get some conveyance,” 
he said. 

“I would rather walk than drive,” said Vittoria; “it 
keeps me from thinking.” 

“There is the dawn, signorina.” 

Vittoria frightened him by taking a seat upon a bench 
of rock; while it was still dark about them, she drew off 
Camilla’s silken shoes and stockings, and stood on bare 
feet. 

“You fancied I was tired,” she said. “No, I am thrifty; 
and I want to save as much of my finery as I can. I can 
go very Well on naked feet. These shoes are no protection ; 
they would be worn out in half-a-day, and spoilt for decent 
wearing in another hour.” 


226 


VITTORIA 


The sight of fair feet upon hard earth troubled Angelo; 
he excused himself for calling her out to endure hardship ; 
but she said, “I trust you entirely.” She looked up at the 
first thin wave of colour while walking. 

“ You do not know me,” said he. 

“ You are the Countess Ammiani’s nephew.” 

“ I have, as I had the honour to tell you yesterday, the 
blood of your lover in my veins.” 

“ Do not speak of him now, I pray,” said Vittoria ; “ I want 
my strength.” 

“ Signorina, the man we have left behind us is his enemy ; 
— mine. I would rather see you dead than alive in his 
hands. Do you fear death ? ” 

“ Sometimes ; when I am half awake,” she confessed. “ I 
dislike thinking of it.” 

He asked her curiously : “ Have you never seen it ? ” 

“ Death ? ” said she, and changed a shudder to a smile ; 
“ I died last night.” 

Angelo smiled with her. “ I saw you die.” 

“ It seems a hundred years ago.” 

“ Or half-a-dozen minutes. The heart counts every- 
thing.” 

“ Was I very much liked by the people, signor Angelo.” 

“ They love you.” 

“ I have done them no good.” 

“Every possible good. And now, mine is the duty to 
protect you.” 

“ And yesterday we were strangers ! Signor Angelo, you 
spoke of sbirri. There is no rising in Bologna. Why are 
they after you ? You look too gentle to give them cause.” 

“ Do I look gentle ? But what I carry is no burden. 
Who that saw you last night would know you for Camilla ? 
You will hear of my deeds, and judge. We shall soon have 
men upon the road ; you must be hidden. See, there : there 
are our colours in the sky. Austria cannot wipe them out. 
Since I was a boy I have always slept in a bed facing East, 
to keep that truth before my eyes. Black and yellow drop 
to the earth: green, white and red mount to heaven. If 
more of my countrymen saw these meanings! — but they 
are learning to. My tutor called them Germanisms. If so, 
I have stolen a jewel from my enemy.” 


ADVENTURES OF VITTORIA AND ANGELO 227 


Yittoria mentioned the Chief. 

“Yes,” said Angelo; “he has taught us to read God’s 
handwriting. I revere him. It’s odd; I always fancy I 
hear his voice from a dungeon, and seeing him looking at 
one light. He has a fault: he does not comprehend the 
feelings of a nobleman. Do you think he has made a 
convert of our Carlo in that ? Never ! High blood is 
ineradicable.” 

“ I am not of high blood,” said Yittoria. 

“ Countess Ammiani overlooks it. And besides low blood 
may be elevated without the intervention of a miracle. You 
have a noble heart, signorina. It may be the will of God 
that you should perpetuate our race. All of us save Carlo 
Ammiani seem to be falling.” 

Yittoria bent her head, distressed by a broad beam of sun- 
light. The country undulating to the plain lay under them, 
the great Alps above, and much covert on all sides. They 
entered a forest pathway, following chance for safety. The 
dark leafage and low green roofing tasted sweeter to their 
senses than clear air and sky. Dark woods are homes to 
fugitives, and here there was soft footing, a surrounding 
gentleness, — grass, and moss with dead leaves peacefully flat 
on it. The birds were not timorous, and when a lizard or a 
snake slipped away from her feet, it was amusing to Yit- 
toria and did not hurt her tenderness to see that they were 
feared. Threading on beneath the trees, they wound by a 
valley’s incline, where tumbled stones blocked the course of 
a green water, and filled the lonely place with one onward 
voice. When the sun stood over the valley they sat beneath 
a chestnut tree in a semicircle of orange rock to eat the food 
which Angelo had procured at the inn. He poured out wine 
for her in the hollow of a stone, deep as an egg-shell, 
whereat she sipped, smiling at simple contrivances ; but no 
smile crossed the face of Angelo. He ate and drank to sus- 
tain his strength, as a weapon is sharpened; and having 
done, he gathered up what was left, and lay at her feet 
with his eyes fixed upon an old grey stone. She, too, sat 
brooding. The endless babble and noise of the water had 
hardened the sense of its being a life in that solitude. The 
floating of a hawk overhead scarce had the character of an 
animated thing. Angelo turned round to look at her, and 


228 


VITTORIA 


looking upward as lie lay, his sight was smitten by spots of 
blood upon one of her torn white feet, that was but half- 
nestled in the folds of her dress. Bending his head down 
like a bird beaking at prey, he kissed the foot passionately. 
Vittoria’s eyelids ran up ; a chord seemed to snap within 
her ears : she stole the shamed foot into concealment, and 
throbbed, but not fearfully, for Angelo’s forehead was on 
the earth. Clumps of grass, and sharp flint-dust stuck be- 
tween his fists, which were thrust out stiff on either side 
of him. She heard him groan heavily. When he raised his 
face, it was white as madness. Her womanly nature did 
not shrink from caressing it with a touch of soothing hands. 

She chanced to say, “ I am your sister.” 

“No, by God! you are not my sister,” cried the young 
man. “ She died without a stain of blood ; a lily from head 
to foot, and went into the vault so. Our mother will see 
that. She will kiss the girl in heaven and see that.” He 
rose, crying louder : “ Are there echoes here ? ” But his 
voice beat against the rocks undoubled. 

She saw that a frenzy had seized him. He looked with 
eyes drained of human objects ; standing square, with stiff 
half-dropped arms, and an intense melody of wretchedness 
in his voice. 

“ Binaldo, Binaldo ! ” he shouted: “Clelia! — no answer 
from man or ghost. She is dead. We two said to her — 
die ! and she died. Therefore she is silent, for the dead have 
not a word. Oh ! Milan, Milan ! accursed betraying city ! 
I should have found my work in you if you had kept faith. 
Now here am I, talking to the strangled throat of this place, 
and can get no answer. Where am I ? The world is 
hollow : — the miserable shell ! They lied. Battle and 
slaughter they promised me, and enemies like ripe maize for 
the reaping-hook. I would have had them in thick to my 
hands. I would have washed my hands at night, and eaten 
and drunk and slept, and sung again to work in the morning. 
They promised me a sword and a sea to plunge it in, and our 
mother Italy to bless me. I would have toiled : I would 
have done good in my life. I would have bathed my soul in 
our colours. I would have had our flag about my body for a 
winding-sheet, and the fighting angels of God to unroll me. 
Now here am I, and my own pale mother trying at every 


ADVENTURES OF VITTORIA AND ANGELO 229 


turn to get in front of me. Have her away ! It’s a ghost, 
I know. She will be touching the strength out of me. She 
is not the mother I love and I serve. Go : cherish your 
daughter, you dead woman ! ” 

Angelo reeled. “A spot of blood has sent me mad,” he 
said, and caught for a darkness to cross his sight, and fell 
and lay flat. 

Vittoria looked around her; her courage was needed in 
that long silence. 

She adopted his language : “ Our mother Italy is waiting 
for us. We must travel on, and not be weary. Angelo, my 
friend, lend me your help over these stones.” 

He rose quietly. She laid her elbow on his hand ; thus 
supported she left a place that seemed to shudder. All the 
heavy day they walked almost silently ; she not daring to 
probe his anguish with a question ; and he calm and vacant 
as the hour following thunder. But, of her safety by his 
side she had no longer a doubt. She let him gather weeds 
and grasses, and bind them across her feet, and perform 
friendly services, sure that nothing earthly could cause such 
a mental tempest to recur. The considerate observation 
which at all seasons belongs to true courage told her that it 
was not madness afflicting Angelo. 

Near nightfall they came upon a forester’s hut, where 
they were welcomed by an old man and a little girl, who 
gave them milk and black bread, and straw to rest on. 
Angelo slept in the outer air. When Vittoria awoke she 
had the fancy that she had taken one long dive downward 
in a well, and on touching the bottom found her head above 
the surface. While her surprise was wearing off, she beheld 
the woodman’s little girl at her feet holding up one end 
of her cloak, and peeping underneath, overcome by amaze- 
ment at the flashing richness of the dress of the heroine 
Camilla. Entering into the state of her mind spontaneously, 
Vittoria sought to induce the child to kiss her ; but quite 
vainly. The child’s reverence for the dress allowed .her only 
to be within reach of the hem of it, so as to delight her 
curiosity. Vittoria smiled when, as she sat up, the child 
fell back against the wall ; and as she rose to her feet, the 
child scampered from the room. “My poor Camilla! you 
can charm somebody, yet,” she said, limping; her visage 


230 


YITTORIA 


like a broken water with the pain of her feet. “ If the bell 
rings for Camilla now, what sort of an entry will she make ? ” 
Yittoria treated her physical weakness and ailments with 
this spirit of humour. “ They may say that . Michiella has 
bewitched you, my Camilla. I think your voice would 
sound as if it were dragging its feet after it — just as a stork 
flies. 0 my Camilla ! don’t I wish I could do the same, and 
be ungraceful and at ease ! A moan is married to every note 
of your treble, my Camilla, like December and May. Keep 
me from shrieking ! ” 

The pangs shooting from her feet were scarce bearable, 
but the repression of them helped her to meet Angelo with 
a freer mind than, after the interval of separation, she would 
have had. The old woodman was cooking a queer composi- 
tion of flour and milk sprinkled with salt for them. Angelo 
cut a stout cloth to encase each of her feet, and bound them 
in it. He was more cheerful than she had ever seen him, 
and now first spoke of their destination. His design was to 
conduct her near to Bormio, there to engage a couple of men 
in her service who would accompany her to Meran, by the 
Val di Sole, while he crossed the Stelvio alone, and turning 
leftward in the Tyrolese valley, tried the passage into Swit- 
zerland. Bormio, if, when they quitted the forest, a con- 
veyance could be obtained, was no more than a short day’s 
distance, according to the old woodman’s directions. Yittoria 
induced the little girl to sit upon her knee, and sang to her, 
but greatly unspirited the charm of her dress. The sun was 
rising as they bade adieu to the hut. 

About mid-day they quitted the shelter of forest trees 
and stood on broken ground, without a path to guide them. 
Yittoria did her best to laugh at her mishaps in walking, 
and compared herself to a Capuchin pilgrim ; but she was 
unused to going bareheaded and shoeless, and though she 
held on bravely, the strong beams of the sun and the stony 
ways warped her strength. She had to check fancies drawn 
from Arabian tales, concerning the help sometimes given by 
genii of the air and enchanted birds, that were so incessant 
and vivid that she found herself sulking at the loneliness 
and helplessness of the visible sky, and feared that her brain 
was losing its hold of things. Angelo led her to a half- 
shaded hollow, where they finished the remainder of yester- 


ADVENTURES OF VITTORIA AND ANGELO 231 


day’s meat and wine. She set her eyes upon a gold-green 
lizard by a stone and slept. 

“ The quantity of sleep I require is unmeasured,” she said, 
a minute afterwards, according to her reckoning of time, 
and expected to see the lizard still by the stone. Angelo 
was near her ; the sky was full of colours, and the earth of 
shadows. 

“ Another day gone!” she exclaimed in wonderment, 
thinking that the days of human creatures had grown to be 
as rapid and (save toward the one end) as meaningless as 
the gaspings of a fish on dry land. He told her that he had 
explored the country as far as he had dared to stray from 
her. He had seen no habitation along the heights. The 
vale was too distant for strangers to reach it before night- 
fall. “We can make a little way on,” said Yittoria, and 
the trouble of walking began again. He entreated her more 
than once to have no fear. “ What can I fear ? ” she asked. 
His voice sank penitently : “ You can rely on me fully when 
there is anything to do for you.” 

“ I am sure of that,” she replied, knowing his allusion to 
be to his frenzy of yesterday. In truth, no woman could 
have had a gentler companion. 

On the topmost ridge of the heights, looking over an 
interminable gulf of darkness they saw the lights of the 
vale. “ A bird might find his perch there, but I think there 
is no chance for us,” said Yittoria. “ The moment we move 
forward to them the lights will fly back. It is their way of 
behaving.” 

Angelo glanced round desperately. Farther on along the 
ridge his eye caught sight of a low smouldering fire. When 
he reached it he had a great disappointment. A fire in the 
darkness gives hopes that men will be at hand. Here there 
was not any human society. The fire crouched on its ashes. 
It was on a little circular eminence of mossed rock ; black 
sticks, and brushwood, and dry fern, and split logs, pitchy 
to the touch, lay about ; in the centre of them the fire coiled 
sullenly among its ashes, with a long eye like a serpent’s. 

u Could you sleep here ? ” said Angelo. 

“ Anywhere ! ” Yittoria sighed with droll dolefulness. 

“ I can promise to keep you warm, signorina.” 

“ I will not ask for more till to-morrow, my friend.” 


232 


VITTORIA 


She laid herself down sideways, curling up her feet, with 
her cheek on the palm of her hand. 

Angelo knelt and coaxed the fire, whose appetite, like that 
which is said to be ours, was fed by eating, for after the red 
jaws had taken half-a-dozen sticks, it sang out for more, and 
sent up flame leaping after flame and thick smoke. Vittoria 
watched the scene through a thin division of her eyelids ; 
the fire, the black abyss of country, the stars, and the sen- 
tinel figure. She dozed on the edge of sleep, unable to yield 
herself to it wholly. She believed that she was dreaming 
when by-and-by many voices filled her ears. The fire was 
sounding like an angry sea, and the voices were like the 
shore, more intelligible, but confused in shriller clamour. 
She was awakened by Angelo, who knelt on one knee and 
took her outlying hand ; then she saw that men surrounded 
them, some of whom were hurling the lighted logs about, 
some trampling down the outer rim of flames. They looked 
devilish to a first awakening glance. He told her that the 
men were friendly ; they were good Italians. This had been 
the beacon arranged for the night of the Fifteenth, when no 
run of signals was seen from Milan; and yesterday after- 
noon it had been in mockery partially consumed. “We 
have aroused the country, signorina, and brought these 
poor fellows out of their beds. They supposed that Milan 
must be up and at work. I have explained everything to 
them.” 

Vittoria had rather to receive their excuses than to prof- 
fer her own. They were mostly youths dressed like the 
better class of peasantry. They laughed at the incident, 
stating how glad they would have been to behold the 
heights all across the lakes ablaze and promising action 
for the morrow. One square-shouldered fellow raised her 
lightly from the ground. She felt herself to be a creature 
for whom circumstance was busily plotting, so that it was 
useless to exert her mind in thought. The long procession 
sank down the darkness, leaving the low red fire to die out 
behind them. 

Next morning she awoke in a warm bed, possessed by 
odd images of flames that stood up like crowing cocks, and 
cowered like hens above the brood. She was in the house 
of one of their new friends, and she could hear Angelo talk- 


ADVENTURES OF VITTORIA AND ANGELO 233 


ing in the adjoining room. A conveyance was ready to take 
her on to Bormio. A woman came to her to tell her this, 
appearing to have a dull desire to get her gone. She was a 
draggled woman, with a face of slothful anguish, like one 
of the inner spectres of a guilty man. She said that her 
husband was willing to drive the lady to Bormio for a sum 
that was to be paid at once into his wife’s hand ; and little 
enough it was which poor persons could ever look for from 
your patriots and disturbers who seduced orderly men from 
their labour, and made widows and ruined households. 
This was a new Italian language to Yittoria, and when the 
woman went on giving instances of households ruined by a 
husband’s vile infatuation about his country, she did not 
attempt to defend the reckless lord, but dressed quickly 
that she might leave the house as soon as she could. Her 
stock of money barely satisfied the woman’s demand. The 
woman seized it, and secreted it in her girdle. When they 
had passed into the sitting-room, her husband, who was sit- 
ting conversing with Angelo, stretched out his hand and 
knocked the girdle. 

“ That’s our trick,” he said. “I guessed so. Fund up, 
our little Maria of the dirty fingers’-ends ! We accept no 
money from true patriots. Grub in other ground, my 
dear ! ” 

The woman stretched her throat awry, and set up a howl 
like a dog ; but her claws came out when he seized her. 

“ Would you disgrace me, old fowl ? ” 

“ Lorenzo, may you rot like a pumpkin ! ” 

The connubial reciprocities were sharp until the money 
lay on the table, when the woman began whining so miser- 
ably that Yittoria’s sensitive nerves danced on her face, and 
at her authoritative interposition, Lorenzo very reluctantly 
permitted his wife to take what he chose to reckon a fair 
portion of the money, and also of his contempt. She seemed 
to be licking the money up, she bent over it so greedily. 

“ Poor wretch ! ” he observed ; “ she was born on a hired 
bed.” 

Yittoria felt that the recollection of this woman would 
haunt her. It was inconceivable to her that a handsome 
young man like Lorenzo should ever have wedded the 
unsweet creature, who was like a crawling image of decay ; 


234 


YITTORIA 


but he, as if to account for his taste, said that they had 
been of a common age once, when he married her ; now she 
had grown old. He repeated that she “ was born on a hired 
bed.” They saw nothing further of her. 

Yittoria’s desire was to get to Meran speedily, that she 
might see her friends, and have tidings of her lover and 
the city. Those baffled beacon-flames on the heights had 
become an irritating indicative vision : she thirsted for the 
history. Lorenzo offered to conduct her over the Tonale 
Pass into the Yal di Sole, or up the Yal Furva, by the pass 
of the Corno dei Tre Signori, into the Yal del Monte to Pejo, 
thence by Cles, or by Bolzano, to Meran. But she required 
shoeing and refitting ; and for other reasons also, she deter- 
mined to go on to Bormio. She supposed that Angelo had 
little money, and that in a place such as Bormio sounded to 
her ears she might possibly obtain the change for the great 
money-order which the triumph of her singing had won 
from Antonio-Pericles. In spite of Angelo’s appeals to her 
to hurry on to the end of her journey without tempting 
chance by a single pause, she resolved to go to Bormio. 
Lorenzo privately assured her. that there were bankers in 
Bormio. Many bankers, he said, came there from Milan, 
and that fact she thought sufficient for her purpose. The 
wanderers parted regretfully. A little chapel, on a hillock 
off the road, shaded by chestnuts, was pointed out to Lorenzo 
where to bring a letter for Angelo. Yittoria begged Angelo 
to wait till he heard from her; and then, with mutual 
wavings of hands, she was driven out of his sight. 


CHAPTEB XXY 

ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS 

After parting from Yittoria, Angelo made his way to an 
inn, where he ate and drank like a man of the fields, and 
slept with the power of one from noon till after morning. 
The innkeeper came up to his room, and, finding him awake, 
asked him if he was disposed to take a second holiday in 


ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS 235 

bed. Angelo jumped up; as be did so, bis stiletto slipped 
from under bis pillow and flashed. 

“That’s a pretty bit of steel / 7 said the innkeeper, but 
could not get a word out of him. It was plain to Angelo 
that this fellow had suspicions. Angelo had been careful to 
tie up his clothes in a bundle ; there was nothing for the 
innkeeper to see, save a young man in bed, who had a 
terrible weapon near his hand, and a look in his eyes of 
wary indolence that counselled prudent dealings. He went 
out, and returned a second and a third time, talking more 
and more confusedly and fretfully; but as he was again 
going to leave, “No, no,” said Angelo, determined to give 
him a lesson, “ I have taken a liking to your company. 
Here, come here ; I will show you a trick. I learnt it from 
the Servians when I was three feet high. Look ; I lie quite 
still, you observe. Try to get on the other side of that door 
and the point of this blade shall scratch you through it.” 
Angelo laid the blue stilet up his wrist, and slightly curled 
his arm. “ Try,” he repeated, but the innkeeper had 
stopped short in his movement to the door. “Well, then, 
stay where you are,” said Angelo, “ and look ; I’ll be as good 
as my word. There’s the point I shall strike.” With that 
he gave the peculiar Servian jerk of the muscles, from the 
wrist up to the arm, and the blade quivered on the mark. 
The innkeeper fell back in admiring horror. “Now fetch it 
to me,” said Angelo, putting both arms carelessly under his 
head. The innkeeper tugged at the blade. “Illustrious 
signore, I am afraid of breaking it,” he almost whimpered ; 
“ it seems alive, does it not ? ” 

“ Like a hawk on a small bird,” said Angelo ; “ that’s the 
beauty of those blades. They kill, and put you to as little 
pain as a shot ; and it’s better than a shot in your breast — 
there’s something to show for it. Send up your wife or your 
daughter to take orders about my breakfast. It’s the break- 
fast of five mountaineers ; and don’t ‘ Illustrious signore ’ 
me, sir, either in my hearing or out of it. Leave the knife 
sticking.” 

The innkeeper sidled out with a dumb salute. “ I can 
count on his discretion for a couple of hours,” Angelo said 
to himself. He knew the effect of an exhibition of physical 
dexterity and strength upon a coward. The landlord’s 


236 


VITTORIA 


daughter came and received his orders for breakfast. Angelo 
inquired whether they had been visited by Germans of late. 
The girl told him that a German chasseur with a couple of 
soldiers had called them up last night. 

“ Wouldn’t it have been a pity if they had dragged me 
out and shot me ? ” said Angelo. 

“ But they were after a lady,” she explained ; “ they have 
gone on to Bormio, and expect to catch her there or in the 
mountains.” 

“ Better there than in the mountains, my dear ; don’t you 
think so ? ” 

The girl said that she would not like to meet those fellows 
among the mountains. 

“Suppose you were among the mountains, and those 
fellows came up with you ; wouldn’t you clap your hands 
to see me jumping down right in front of you all ? ” said 
Angelo. 

“Yes, I should,” she admitted. “What is one man 
though ! ” 

“ Something, if he feeds like five. Quick ! I must eat. 
Have you a lover ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ Fancy you are waiting on him.” 

“ He’s only a middling lover, signore. He lives at Cles, 
over Yal Pejo, in Yal di Non, a long way, and courts me 
twice a year, when he comes over to do carpentering. He 
cuts very pretty Madonnas. He is a German.” 

“ Ha ! you kneel to the Madonna, and give your lips to a 
German ? Go.” 

“ But I don’t like him much, signore ; it’s my father who 
wishes me to have him ; he can make money.” 

Angelo motioned to her to be gone, saying to himself, 
“ That father of hers would betray the Saints for a handful 
of florins.” 

He dressed, and wrenched his knife from the door. Hear- 
ing the clatter of a horse at the porch, he stopped as he was 
descending the stairs. A German voice said, “ Sure enough, 
my jolly landlord, she’s there, in Worms — your Bormio. 
Found her at the big hotel : spoke not a syllable ; stole 
away, stole away. One chopin of wine! I’m off on four 
legs to the captain. Those lads who are after her by Bo- 


ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS 


237 


veredo and Trent have bad noses. ‘Poor nose — empty 
belly.’ Says the captain, ‘ I stick at the point of the cross- 
roads.’ Says I, ‘ Herr Captain, I’m back to you first of the 
lot.’ My business is to find the runaway lady — pretty Er&u- 
lein ! pretty Eraulein ! la'i-ai ! There’s money on her servant, 
too ; he’s a disguised Excellency — a handsome boy ; but he 
has cut himself loose, and he go hang. Two birds for the 
pride of the thing ; one for satisfaction — I’m satisfied. I’ve 
killed chamois in my time. Jacob, I am; Baumwalder, I 
am ; Eeckelwitz, likewise ; and the very devil for following 
a track. Ach ! the wine is good. You know the song ? — 

* He who drinks wine, he may cry with a will, 

Fortune is mine, may she stick to me still.’ 

I give it you in German — the language of song ! my own, 
my native ! lai-ai — lai-ai — la-la-lai-ai-i-ie / 

* While stars still sit 
On mountain tops, 

I take my gun, 

Kiss little one 

On mother’s breast. 

Ai-iu-e ! 

1 My pipe is lit, 

I climb the slopes, 

I meet the dawn — 

A little one 

On mother’s breast. 

Ai-a'ie : ta-ta-tai : iu-iu-iue ! ’ 

Another chopin, my jolly landlord. What’s that you’re 
mumbling ? About the servant of my runaway young lady ? 
He go hang ! What ? ” 

Angelo struck his foot heavily on the stairs; the inn- 
keeper coughed and ran back, bowing to his guest. The 
chasseur cried, “ I’ll drink farther on — wine between gaps ! ” 
A coin chinked on the steps in accompaniment to the chas- 
seur’s departing gallop. “ Beast of a Tedesco,” the land- 
lord exclaimed as he picked up the money; “they do the 
reckoning — not we. If I had served him with the worth 
of this, I should have had the bottle at my head. What a 


238 


VITTORIA 


country ours is ! We’re ridden over, ridden over ! ” Angelo 
compelled the landlord to sit with him while he ate like five 
mountaineers. He left mere bones on the table. “ It’s won- 
derful,” said the innkeeper ; “ you can’t know what fear is.” 

“I think I don’t,” Angelo replied; “you do; cowards 
have to serve every party in turn. Up, and follow at my 
heels till I dismiss you. You know the pass into the Val 
Pejo and the Yal di Sole.” The innkeeper stood entrenched 
behind a sturdy negative. Angelo eased him to submission 
by telling him that he only wanted the way to be pointed 
out. “Bring tobacco; you’re going to have an idle day,” 
said Angelo: “I pay you when we separate.” He was deaf 
to entreaties and refusals, and began to look mad about the 
eyes ; his poor coward plied him with expostulations, offered 
his wife, his daughter, half the village, for the service : he 
had to follow, but would take no cigars. Angelo made his 
daughter fetch bread and cigars, and put a handful in his 
pocket, upon which, after two hours of inactivity at the foot 
of the little chapel, where Angelo waited for the coming of 
Yittoria’s messenger, the innkeeper was glad to close his 
fist. About noon Lorenzo came, and at once acted a play 
of eyes for Angelo to perceive his distrust of the man and 
a multitude of bad things about him : he was reluctant, not- 
withstanding Angelo’s ready nod, to bring out a letter ; and 
frowned again, for emphasis to the expressive comedy. The 
letter said : — 

“I have fallen upon English friends. They lend me 
money. Ely to Lugano by the help of these notes : I inclose 
them, and will not ask pardon for it. The Yaltellina is 
dangerous; the Stelvio we know to be watched. Retrace 
your way, and then try the Engadine. I should stop on a 
breaking bridge if I thought my companion, my Carlo’s 
cousin, was near capture. I am well taken care of : one of 
my dearest friends, a captain in the English army, bears me 
company across. I have a maid from one of the villages, a 
willing girl. We ride up to the mountains ; to-morrow we 
cross the pass; there is a glacier. Yal di Non sounds 
Italian, but I am going into the enemy’s land. You see I 
am well guarded. My immediate anxiety concerns you ; 
for what will our Carlo ask of me ? Lose not one moment. 


ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS 


239 


Away, and do not detain Lorenzo. He has orders to meet 
us up high in the mountain this evening. He is the best 
of servants : but I always meet the best everywhere — that 
is, in Italy. Leaving it, I grieve. No news from Milan, 
except of great confusion there. I judge by the quiet of my 
sleep that we have come to no harm there. 

“ Your faithfullest 

“ VlTTORIA.” 

Lorenzo and the innkeeper had arrived at an altercation 
before Angelo finished reading. Angelo checked it, and told 
Lorenzo to make speed : he sent no message. 

“ My humanity,” Angelo then addressed his craven asso- 
ciate, “ counsels me that it’s better to drag you some distance 
on than to kill you. You’re a man of intelligence, and you 
know why I have to consider the matter. I give you guide’s 
pay up to the glacier, and ten florins buon’mano. Would 
you rather earn it with the blood of a countryman ? I can’t 
let that tongue of yours be on the high-road of running 
Tedeschi : you know it.” 

“ Illustrious signore, obedience oils necessity,” quoth the 
innkeeper. “ If we had but a few more of my cigars ! ” 

“ Step on,” said Angelo sternly. 

They walked till dark and they were in keen air. A hut 
full of recent grass-cuttings, on the border of a sloping 
wood, sheltered them. The innkeeper moaned for food at 
night and in the morning, and Angelo tossed him pieces of 
bread. Beyond the wood they came upon bare crag and 
commenced a sharper ascent, reached the height, and roused 
an eagle. The great bird went up with a sharp yelp, hang- 
ing over them with knotted claws. Its shadow stretched 
across sweeps of fresh snow. The innkeeper sent a mocking 
yelp after the eagle. 

“Up here, one forgets one is a father — what’s more, a 
husband,” he said, striking a finger on the side of his nose. 

“ And a cur, a traitor, carrion,” said Angelo. 

“ Ah, signore, one might know you were a noble. You 
can’t understand our troubles, who carry a house on our 
heads, and have to fill mouths agape.” 

“ Speak when you have better to say,” Angelo replied. 

“ Padrone, one would really like to have your good 


240 


VITTORIA 


opinion ; and I’m lean as a wolf for a morsel of flesh. I 
could part with my buon’mano for a sight of red meat — oh ! 
red meat dripping.” 

“ If,” cried Angelo, bringing his eyebrows down black on 
the man, — “ if I knew that yon had ever in your life 
betrayed one of us — look below ; there you should lie to be 
pecked and gnawed at.” 

“ Ah, Jacopo Cruchi, what an end for you when you are 
full of good meanings ! ” the innkeeper moaned. “ I see 
your ribs, my poor soul ! ” 

Angelo quitted him. The tremendous excitement of 
the Alpine solitudes was like a stringent wine to his sur- 
charged spirit. He was one to whom life and death had 
become as the yes and no of ordinary men : not more than a 
turning to the right or to the left. It surprised him that 
this fellow, knowing his own cowardice and his conscience, 
should consent to live, and care to eat to live. 

When he returned to his companion, he found the fellow 
drinking from the flask of an Austrian soldier. Another 
whitecoat was lying near. They pressed Angelo to drink, 
and began to play lubberly pranks. One clapped hands, 
while another rammed the flask at the reluctant mouth, till 
Angelo tripped him and made him a subject for derision ; 
whereupon they were all good friends. Musket on shoulder, 
the soldiers descended, blowing at their finger-nails and 
puffing at their tobacco — lauter Tcdiserlicher (rank Imperial), 
as with a sad enforcement of resignation they had, while 
lighting, characterized the universally detested Government 
issue of the leaf. 

“They are after her, 1 ” said Jacopo, and he shot out his 
thumb and twisted an eyelid. His looks became insolent, 
and he added : “ I let them go on ; but now, for my part, I 
must tell you, my worthy gentleman, I’ve had enough of it. 
You go your way, I go mine. Pay me, and we part. With 
the utmost reverence, I quit you. Climbing mountains at 
my time of life is out of all reason. If you want compan- 
ions, I’ll signal to that pair of Tedeschi ; they’re within hail. 
Would you like it ? Say the word, if you would — hey ! ” 

Angelo smiled at the visible effect of the liquor. 

“ Barto Bizzo would be the man to take you in hand,” he 
remarked. 


ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS 


241 


The innkeeper flung his head back to ejaculate, and mur- 
mured, “ Barto Rizzo ! defend me from him ! Why, he 
levies contribution upon us in the Valtellina for the good of 
Milan; and if we don’t pay, we’re all of us down in a black 
book. Disobey, and its worse than swearing you won’t pay 
taxes to the legitimate — perdition to it ! — Government. Do 
you know Barto Rizzo, padrone ? You don’t know him, I 
hope ? I’m sure you wouldn’t know such a fellow.” 

“ I am his favourite pupil,” said Angelo. 

“ I’d have sworn it,” groaned the innkeeper, and cursed 
the day and hour when Angelo crossed his threshold. That 
done, he begged permission to be allowed to return, crying 
with tears of entreaty for mercy : “ Barto Rizzo’s pupils are 
always out upon bloody businesses ! ” Angelo told him that 
he had now an opportunity of earning the approval of Barto 
Rizzo, and then said, “ On,” and they went in the track of 
the two whitecoats ; the innkeeper murmuring all the while 
that he wanted the approval of Barto Rizzo as little as his 
enmity ; he wanted neither frost nor fire. The glacier being 
traversed, they skirted a young stream, and arrived at an 
inn, where they found the soldiers regaling. Jacopo was 
informed by them that the lady whom they were pursuing 
had not passed. They pushed their wine for Angelo to drink : 
he declined, saying that he had sworn not to drink before 
he had shot the chamois with the white cross on his back. 

“ Come : we’re two to one,” they said, “ and drink you shall 
this time ! ” 

“ Two to two,” returned Angelo : “ here is my Jacopo, and 
if he doesn’t count for one, I won’t call him father-in-law, 
and the fellow living at Cles may have his daughter without 
fighting for her.” 

“ Right so,” said one of the soldiers, “and you don’t speak 
bad German already.” 

“ Haven’t I served in the ranks ? ” said Angelo, giving a 
bugle-call of the reveillee of the cavalry. 

He got on with them so well that they related the object 
of their expedition, which was, to catch a runaway young 
rebel lady and hold her fast down at Cles for the great cap- 
tain — unser tilchtiger Hauptmann. 

“Hadn’t she a servant, a sort of rascal?” Angelo in- 
quired. 


242 


YITTORIA 


“Right so; she had: but the doe’s the buck in this 
chase.” 

Angelo tossed them cigars. The valley was like a tumbled 
mountain, thick with crags and eminences, through which 
the river worked strenuously, sinuous in foam, hurrying at 
the turns. Angelo watched all the ways from a distant 
height till set of sun. He saw another couple of soldiers 
meet those two at the inn, and then one pair went up toward 
the vale-head. It seemed as if Yittoria had disconcerted 
them by having chosen another route. 

“Padrone,” said Jacopo to him abruptly, when they 
descended to find a resting-place, “ you are, I speak humbly, 
so like the devil that I must enter into a stipulation with 
you, before I continue in your company, and take the worst 
at once. This is going to be the second night of my sleep- 
ing away from my wife : I merely mention it. I pinch her, 
and she beats me, and we are equal. But if you think of 
making me fight, I tell you I won’t. If there was a furnace 
behind me, I should fall into it rather than run against a 
bayonet. I’ve heard say that the nerves are in the front 
part of us, and that’s where I feel the shock. Now we’re 
on a plain footing. Say that I’m not to fight. I’ll be your 
servant till you release me, but say I’m not to fight; padrone, 
say that.” 

“I can’t say that: I’ll say I won’t make you fight,” 
Angelo pacified him by replying. From this moment Jacopo 
followed him less like a graceless dog pulled by his chain. 
In fact, with the sense of prospective security, he tasted a 
luxurious amazement in being moved about by a superior 
will, wafted from his inn, and paid for witnessing strange 
incidents. Angelo took care that he was fed well at the 
place where they slept, but himself ate nothing. Early 
after dawn they mounted the heights above the road. It 
was about noon that Angelo discerned a party coming from 
the pass on foot, consisting of two women and three men. 
They rested an hour at the village where he had slept over- 
night ; the muskets were a quarter of a mile to the rear of 
them. When they started afresh, one of the muskets was 
discharged, and while the echoes were rolling away, a reply 
to it sounded in the front. Angelo, from his post of obser- 
vation, could see that Yittoria and her party were marching 


ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS 


243 


between two guards, and that she herself must have per- 
ceived both the front and rearward couple. Yet she and 
her party held on their course at an even pace. For a time 
he kept them clearly in view ; but it was tough work along 
the slopes of crag : presently Jacopo slipped and went down. 
“ Ah, padrone,” he said : “ I’m done for ; leave me.” 

“Not though I should have to haul you on my back,” 
replied Angelo. “ If I do leave you, I must cut out your 
tongue.” 

“Father than that, I’d go on a sprained ankle,” said 
Jacopo, and he strove manfully to conquer pain; limping 
and exclaiming, “ Oh, my little village ! Oh, my little inn ! 
When can a man say that he has finished running about the 
world ! The moment he sits, in comes the devil.” 

Angelo was obliged to lead him down to the open way, 
upon which they made slow progress. 

“The noble gentleman might let me return — he might 
trust me now,” Jacopo whimpered. 

“ The devil trusts nobody,” said Angelo. 

“Ah, padrone! there’s a crucifix. Let me kneel by that.” 

Angelo indulged him. Jacopo knelt by the wayside, and 
prayed for an easy ankle and a snoring pillow and no waken- 
ers. After this he was refreshed. The sun sank ; the dark- 
ness spread around ; the air grew icy. “ Does the Blessed 
Virgin ever consider what patriots have to endure ? ” J acopo 
muttered to himself, and aroused a rare laugh from Angelo, 
who seized him under the arm, half-lifting him on. At the 
inn where they rested, he bathed and bandaged the foot. 

“I can’t help feeling a kindness to you for it,” said 
Jacopo. 

“ I can’t afford to leave you behind,” Angelo accounted 
for his attention. 

“ Padrone, we’ve been understanding one another all along 
by our thumbs. It’s that old inn of mine — the taxes ! we 
have to sell our souls to pay the taxes. There’s the tongue 
of the thing. I wouldn’t betray you ; I wouldn’t.” 

“ I’ll try you,” said Angelo, and put him to proof next 
day, when the soldiers stopped them as they were driving 
in a cart, and Jacopo swore to them that Angelo was his 
intended son-in-law. 

There was evidently an unusual activity among the gen- 


244 


VITTORIA 


darmerie of the lower valley, the Val di Non; for Jacopo 
had to repeat his fable more than once, and Angelo thought 
it prudent not to make inquiries about travellers. In this 
valley they were again in summer heat. Summer splendours 
robed the broken ground. The Yal di Non lies toward the 
sun, banked by the Yal di Sole, like the southern lizard 
under a stone. Chestnut forest and shoulder over shoulder 
of vineyard, and meadows of marvellous emerald, with here 
and there central partly-wooded crags, peaked with castle- 
ruins, and ancestral castles that are still warm homes, and 
villages dropped among them, and a river bounding and 
rushing eagerly through the rich enclosure, form the scene, 
beneath that Italian sun which turns everything to gold. 
There is a fair breadth to the vale : it enjoys a great oval 
of sky : the falls of shade are dispersed, dot the hollow 
range, and are not at noontide a broad curtain passing over 
from right to left. The sun reigns and also governs - in the 
Yal di Non. 

“The grape has his full benefit here, padrone,” said 
Jacopo. 

But the place was too populous, and too much subjected 
to the general eye, to please Angelo. At Cles they were 
compelled to bear an inspection, and a little comedy occurred. 
Jacopo, after exhibiting Angelo as his son-in-law, seeing 
doubts on the soldiers’ faces, mentioned the name of the 
German suitor for his daughter’s hand — the carpenter, 
Johann Spellmann, to whose workshop he requested to be 
taken. Johann, being one of the odd Germans in the valley, 
was well known : he was carving wood astride a stool, and 
stopped his whistling to listen to the soldiers, who took the 
first word out of Jacopo’s mouth, and were convinced, by 
Johann’s droop of the chin, that the tale had some truth in 
it ; and more when Johann yelled at the Yaltelline innkeeper 
to know why, then, he had come to him, if he was prepared 
to play him false. One of the soldiers said bluntly, that as 
Angelo’s appearance answered to the portrait of a man for 
whom they were on the lookout, they would, if their coun- 
tryman liked, take him and give him a dose of marching 
and imprisonment. 

“ Ach ! that won’t make my little Rosetta love me better,” 
cried Johann, who commenced taking up a string of re- 


ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS 245 

proaches against women, and pitched his carving-blade and 
tools abroad in the wood-dust. 

“ Well, now, it’s queer you don’t want to fight this lad/’ 
said Jacopo; “he’s come to square it with you that way, if 
you think best.” 

Johann spared a remark between his vehement impreca- 
tions against the sex to say that he was ready to fight ; but 
his idea of vengeance was directed upon the abstract con- 
ception of a faithless womankind. Angelo, by reason of his 
detestation of Germans, temporarily threw himself into the 
part he was playing to the extent of despising him. Johann 
admitted to Jacopo that intervals of six months’ duration in 
a courtship were wide jumps for Love to take. 

“ Yes ; amor ! amor ! ” he exclaimed with extreme de- 
jection; “7 could wait. Well! since you’ve brought the 
young man, we’ll have it out. ” 

He stepped before Angelo with bare fists. Jacopo had to 
interpose. The soldiers backed Johann, who now said to 
Angelo, “ Since you’ve come for it, we’ll have it out.” 

Jacopo had great difficulty in bringing him to see that it 
was a matter to talk over. Johann swore he would not talk 
about it, and was ready to fight a dozen Italians, man up 
man down. 

“ Bare-fisted ? ” screamed Jacopo. 

“ Hey ! the old way ! Give him knuckles, and break his 
back, my boy ! ” cried the soldiers ; “ none of their steel this 
side of the mountain.” 

Johann waited for Angelo to lift his hands ; and to insti- 
gate his reluctant adversary, thumped his chest ; but Angelo 
did not move. The soldiers roared. 

“ If she has you, she shall have a dolly,” said Johann, now 
heated with the prospect of presenting that sort of husband 
to his little Bosetta. At this juncture Jacopo threw himself 
between them. 

“It shall be a real fight,” he said; “my daughter can’t 
make up her mind, and she shall have the best man. Leave 
me to arrange it all fairly ; and you come here in a couple 
of hours, my children,” he addressed the soldiers, who 
unwillingly quitted the scene where there was a certainty 
of fun, on the assurance of there being a livelier scene to 
come. 


246 


VITTORIA 


When they had turned their heels on the shop, Jacopo 
made a face at Johann ; Johann swung round upon Angelo, 
and met a smile. Then followed explanations. 

“ What’s that you say ? She’s true — she’s true ? ” ex- 
claimed the astounded lover. 

“ True enough, but a girl at an inn wants hotter courting,” 
said Jacopo. “His Excellency here is after his own sweet- 
heart.” 

Johann huzzaed, hugged at Angelo’s hands, and gave a 
lusty filial tap to Jacopo on the shoulder. Bread and grapes 
and Tyrolese wine were placed for them, and Johann’s mother 
soon produced a salad, eggs, and fowl ; and then and there 
declared her willingness to receive Rosetta into the house- 
hold, “if she would swear at the outset never to have 
heimweh (home-longing) ; as people — men and women, both 
— always did when they took a new home across a moun- 
tain.” 

“ She won’t — will she ? ” Johann inquired with a dubious 
sparkle. 

“Not she,” said Jacopo. 

After the meal he drew Johann aside. They returned to 
Angelo, and Johann beckoned him to leave the house by a 
back way, leading up a slope of garden into high vine-poles. 
He said that he had seen a party pass out of Cles from the 
inn early, in a light car, on for Meran. The gendarmerie 
were busy on the road : a mounted officer had dashed up to 
the inn an hour later, and had followed them : it was the 
talk of the village. 

“Padrone, you dismiss me now,” said Jacopo. 

“I pay you, but don’t dismiss you,” said Angelo, and 
handed him a bank-note. 

“I stick to you, padrone, till you do dismiss me,” Jacopo 
sighed. 

Johann offered to conduct them as far as the Monte 
Pallade pass, and they started, avoiding the high-road, 
which was enviably broad and solid. Within view of a vil- 
lage under climbing woods, they discerned an open car, 
flanked by bayonets, returning to Cles. Angelo rushed 
ahead of them down the declivity, and stood full in the 
road to meet the procession. A girl sat in the car, who 
hung her head, weeping; Lorenzo was beside her; an 


THE DUEL IN THE PASS 


247 


Englishman on foot gave employment to a pair of soldiers 
to get him along. As they came near at marching pace, 
Lorenzo yawned and raised his hand to his cheek, keeping 
the thumb pointed behind him. Including the girl, there 
were four prisoners : Yittoria was absent. The Englishman, 
as he was being propelled forward, addressed Angelo in 
Erench, asking him whether he could bear to see an un- 
offending foreigner treated with wanton violation of law. 
The soldiers bellowed at their captive, and Angelo sent a 
stupid shrug after him. They rounded a bend of the road. 
Angelo tightened the buckle at his waist. 

“Now I trust you,” he said to Jacopo. “Eollow the 
length of five miles over the pass : if you don’t see me then, 
you have your liberty, tongue and all.” 

With that he doubled his arms and set forth at a steady 
run, leaving his companions to speculate on his powers of 
endurance. They did so complacently enough, until Jacopo 
backed him for a distance and J ohann betted against him, 
when behold them at intervals taking a sharp trot to keep 
him in view. 


CHAPTER XXVI 

THE DUEL IN THE PASS 

Meanwhile Captain Weisspriess had not been idle. 
Standing at a blunt angle of the ways converging upon 
Vittoria’s presumed destination, he had roused up the 
gendarmerie along the routes to Meran by Trent on one side, 
and Bormio on the other ; and he soon came to the conclusion 
that she had rejected the valley of the Adige for the Valtel- 
line, whence he supposed that she would be tempted either 
to cross the Stelvio or one of the passes into Southernmost 
Tyrol. He was led to think that she would certainly bear 
upon Switzerland, by a course of reasoning connected with 
Angelo Guidascarpi, who, fleeing under the cross of blood, 
might be calculated on to push for the mountains of the 
Republic ; and he might — judging by the hazards — conduct 
the lady thither, to enjoy the fruits of crime and love in 


248 


VITTORIA 


security. The captain, when he had discovered Angelo’s 
crest and name on the betraying handkerchief, had no 
doubts concerning the nature of their intimacy, and he was 
spurred by a new and thrice eager desire to capture the 
couple — the criminal for the purposes of justice, and 
the other because he had pledged his notable reputation in 
the chase of her. The conscience of this man’s vanity was 
extremely active. He had engaged to conquer the stubborn 
girl, and he thought it possible that he might take a mistress 
from the patriot ranks, with a loud ha! ha ! at revolutionists, 
and some triumph over his comrades. And besides he was 
the favourite of Countess Anna of Lenkenstein, who yet 
refused to bring her estates to him ; she dared to trifle ; she 
also was a woman who required rude lessons. Weisspriess, 
a poor soldier bearing the heritage of lusty appetites, had 
an eye on his fortune, and served neither Mars alone nor 
Venus. Countess Anna was to be among that company 
assembled at the Castle of Sonnenberg in Meran; and if, 
while introducing Vittoria there with a discreet and exciting 
reserve, he at the same time handed over the assassin of 
Count Paul, a fine harvest of praise and various pleasant 
forms of female passion were to be looked for — a rich 
vista of a month’s intrigue ; at the end of it possibly his 
wealthy lady, thoroughly tamed, for a wife, and redoubled 
triumph over his comrades. Without these successes, what 
availed the fame of the keenest swordsman in the Austrian 
army ? — The feast as well as the plumes of vanity offered 
rewards for the able exercise of his wits. 

He remained at the sub-Alpine inn until his servant 
Wilhelm (for whom he had despatched the duchess’s chas- 
seur, then in attendance on Vittoria) arrived from Milan, 
bringing his uniform. The chasseur was directed on the 
Bormio line, with orders that he should cause the arrest of 
Vittoria only in the case of her being on the extreme limit 
of the Swiss frontier. Keeping his communications alert, 
Weisspriess bore that way to meet him. Fortune smiled on 
his strategy. Jacob Baumwalder Feckelwitz — full of wine, 
and discharging hurrahs along the road — met him on the 
bridge over the roaring Oglio, just out of Edolo, and gave 
him news of the fugitives. “ Both of them were at the big 
hotel in Bormio,” said Jacob; “and I set up a report that 


THE DUEL IN THE PASS 


249 


the Stelvio was watched ; and so it is.” He added that he 
thought they were going to separate ; he had heard some- 
thing to that effect; he believed that the young lady was 
bent upon crossing one of the passes to Meran. Last night 
it had devolved on him to kiss away the tears of the young 
lady’s maid, a Valtelline peasant-girl, who deplored the 
idea of an expedition over the mountains, and had, with the 
usual cat-like tendencies of these Italian minxes, torn his 
cheek in return for his assiduities. Jacob displayed the 
pretty scratch obtained in the Herr Captain’s service, and 
got his money for having sighted Yittoria and seen double. 
Weisspriess decided in his mind that Angelo had now 
separated from her (or rather, she from him) for safety. 
He thought it very probable that she would likewise fly to 
Switzerland. Yet, knowing that there was the attraction 
of many friends for her at Meran, he conceived that he 
should act more prudently by throwing himself on that 
line, and he sped Jacob Baumwalder along the Valtelline 
by Val Viola, up to Ponte in the Engadine, with orders to 
seize her if he could see her, and have her conveyed to Cles, 
in Tyrol. Vittoria being only by the gentlest interpreta- 
tion of her conduct not under interdict, an unscrupulous 
Imperial officer might in those military times venture to 
employ the gendarmerie for his own purposes, if he could 
but give a plausible colour of devotion to the Imperial 
interests. 

The chasseur sped lamentingly back, and Weisspriess, 
taking a guide from the skirting hamlet above Edolo, quitted 
the Val Camonica, climbed the Tonale, and reached Ver- 
miglio in the branch valley of that name, scientifically 
observing the features of the country as he went. At 
Vermiglio he encountered a brother officer of one of his 
former regiments, a fat major on a tour of inspection, who 
happened to be a week behind news of the army, and 
detained him on the pretext of helping him on his car — a 
mockery that drove Weisspriess to the perpetual reply, 
“ You are my superior officer,” which reduced the major to 
ask him whether he had been degraded a step. As usual, 
Weisspriess was pushed to assert his haughtiness, backed 
by the shadow of his sword. “I am a man with a family,” 
said the major, modestly. “Then I shall call you my 


250 


VITTORIA 


superior officer while they allow you to remain so,” returned 
Weisspriess, who scorned a married soldier. 

“ I aspired to the Staff once myself,” said the major. 
“ Unfortunately, I grew in girth — the wrong way for 
ambition. I digest, I assimilate with a fatal ease. Stout 
men are doomed to the obscurer paths. You may quote 
Napoleon as a contrary instance. I maintain positively 
that his day was over, his sun was eclipsed, when his valet 
had to loosen the buckles of his waistcoat and breech. 
Now, what do you say ? ” 

“I say,” Weisspriess replied, “that if there’s a further 
depreciation of the paper currency, we shall none of us 
have much chance of digesting or assimilating either — if I 
know at all what those processes mean.” 

“ Our good Lombard cow is not half squeezed enough,” 
observed the major, confidentially in tone. “When she 
makes a noise — quick! the pail at her udders and work 
away ; that’s my advice. What’s the verse ? — our Zwit- 
terwitz’s; I mean: the Viennese poet : — 

‘ Her milk is good — the Lombard cow ; 

Let her be noisy when she pleases : 

But if she kicks the pail, I vow, 

We’ll make her used to sharper squeezes: 

We’ll write her mighty deeds in cheeses : 

(That is, if she yields milk enow).’ 

“Capital! capital!” the major applauded his quotation, 
and went on to speak of ‘ that Z witter witz ’ as having served 
in a border regiment, after creating certain Court scandal, 
and of his carrying off a Wallach lady from her lord and 
selling her to a Turk, and turning Turk himself and keeping 
a harem. Five years later he reappeared in Vienna with 
a volume of what he called ‘ Black Eagle Poems,’ and 
regained possession of his barony. “ So far, so good,” said 
the major ; “ but when he applied for his old commission in 
the army — that was rather too cool.” 

Weisspriess muttered intelligibly, “ I’ve heard the remark, 
that you can’t listen to a man five minutes without getting 
something out of him.” 

“I don’t know; it may be,” said the major, imagining 
that Weisspriess demanded some stronger flavours of gossip 


THE DUEL IN THE PASS 


251 


in his talk. “ There’s no stir in these valleys. They arrested, 
somewhere close on Trent yesterday afternoon, a fellow call- 
ing himself Beppo, the servant of an Italian woman — a 
dancer, I fancy. They’re on the lookout for her too, I’m 
told ; though what sort of capers she can be cutting in Tyrol, 
I can’t even guess.” 

The major’s car was journeying leisurely towards Cles. 
“ Whip that brute ! ” Weisspriess sang out to the driver, and 
begging the major’s pardon, requested to know whither he 
was bound. The major informed him that he hoped to sup 
in Trent. “ Good heaven ! not at this pace,” Weisspriess 
shouted. But the pace was barely accelerated, and he con- 
cealed his reasons for invoking speed. They were late in 
arriving at Trent, where Weisspriess cast eye on the im- 
prisoned wretch, who declared piteously that he was the 
trusted and innocent servant of the signorina Vittoria, and 
had been visiting all the castles of Meran in search of her. 
The captain’s man Wilhelm had been the one to pounce on 
poor Beppo while the latter was wandering disconsolately. 
Leaving him to howl, Weisspriess procured the loan of a 
horse from a colonel of cavalry at the Buon Consiglio 
barracks, and mounted an hour before dawn, followed by 
Wilhelm. He reached Cles in time to learn that Yittoria 
and her party had passed through it a little in advance of 
him. Breakfasting there, he enjoyed the first truly calm 
cigar of many days. Gendarmes whom he had met near the 
place came in at his heels. They said that the party would 
positively be arrested, or not allowed to cross the Monte 
Pallade. The passes to Meran and Botzen, and the road to 
Trent, were strictly guarded. Weisspriess hurried them 
forward with particular orders that they should take into 
custody the whole of the party, excepting the lady ; her, if 
arrested with the others, they were to release : her maid and 
the three men were to be marched back to Cles, and there 
kept fast. 

The game was now his own : he surveyed its pretty in- 
tricate moves as on a map. The character of Herr Johannes 
he entirely discarded: an Imperial officer in his uniform, 
sword in belt, could scarcely continue that meek performance. 
“ But I may admire music, and entreat her to give me a 
particular note, if she has it,” said the captain, hanging in 


252 


YITTORIA 


contemplation over a coming scene, like a quivering hawk 
about to close its wings. His heart beat thick; which 
astonished him: hitherto it had never made that sort of 
movement. 

From Cles he despatched a letter to the fair chatelaine at 
Meran, telling her that by dainty and skilful management 
of the paces, he was bringing on the intractable heroine of 
the Fifteenth, and was to be expected in about two or three 
days. The letter was entrusted to Wilhelm, who took the 
borrowed horse back to Trent. 

Weisspriess was on the muletrack a mile above the last 
village ascending to the pass, when he observed the party 
of prisoners, and climbed up into covert. As they went 
by he discerned but one person in female garments ; the 
necessity to crouch for obscurity prevented him from exam- 
ining them separately. He counted three men and beheld 
one of them between gendarmes. “ That must be my vil- 
lain,” he said. 

It was clear that Yittoria had chosen to go forward alone. 
The captain praised her spirit, and now pushed ahead with 
hunter’s strides. He passed an inn, closed and tenantless : 
behind him lay the Yal di Non; in front the darker valley 
of the Adige : where was the prey ? A storm of rage set in 
upon him with the fear that he had been befooled. He lit a 
cigar, to assume ease of aspect, whatever the circumstances 
might be, and gain some inward serenity by the outer reflec- 
tion of it — not altogether without success. “ My lady must 
be a doughty walker,” he thought ; “ at this rate she will be 
in the Ultenthal before sunset.” A wooded height ranged 
on his left as he descended rapidly. Coming to a roll of 
grass dotted with grey rock, he climbed it, and mounting one 
of the boulders, beheld at a distance of half-a-dozen stone- 
throws downward, the figure of a woman holding her hand 
cup-shape to a wayside fall of water. The path by which 
she was going rounded the height he stood on. He sprang 
over the rocks, catching up his clattering steel scabbard; 
and plunging through tinted leafage and green underwood, 
steadied his heels on a sloping bank, and came down on the 
path with stones and earth and brambles, in time to appear 
as a seated pedestrian when Yittoria turned the bend of the 
mountain way. 


THE DUEL IN THE PASS 


253 


Gracefully withdrawing the cigar from his mouth, and 
touching his breast with turned-in fingers, he accosted her 
with a comical operatic effort at her high notes : “ Italia ! ” 
She gathered her arms on her bosom and looked swiftly 
round : then at the apparition of her enemy. 

It is but an ironical form of respect that you offer to the 
prey you have been hotly chasing and have caught. Weiss- 
priess conceived that he had good reasons for addressing 
her in the tone best suited to his character : he spoke with 
a ridiculous mincing suavity : — 

“ My pretty sweet ! are you not tired ? We have not 
seen one another for days ! Can you have forgotten the 
enthusiastic Herr Johannes? You have been in pleasant 
company, no doubt ; but I have been all — all alone. Think 
of that ! What an exceedingly fortunate chance this is ! I 
was smoking dolefully, and imagining anything but such a 
rapture. — No, no, mademoiselle, be mannerly.” The cap- 
tain blocked her passage. “ You must not leave me while I 
am speaking. A good governess would have taught you 
that in the nursery. I am afraid you had an inattentive 
governess, who did not impress upon you the duty of recog- 
nizing friends when you meet them. Ha ! you were educated 
in England, I have heard. Shake hands. It is our custom 
— I think a better one — to kiss on the right cheek and the 
left, but we will shake hands.” 

“ In God’s name, sir, let me go on,” Vittoria could just 
gather voice to utter. 

“ But,” cried the delighted captain, “ you address me in 
the tones of a basso profundo ! It is absurd. Do you sup- 
pose that I am to be deceived by your artifice ? — rogue 
that you are ! Don’t I know you are a woman ? a sweet, 
an ecstatic, a darling little woman ! ” 

He laughed. She shivered to hear the solitary echoes. 
There was sunlight on the farthest Adige walls, but damp 
shade already filled the East-facing hollows. 

“ I beg you very earnestly, to let me go on,” said Vittoria. 
“ With equal earnestness, I beg you to let me accompany 
you,” he replied. “ I mean no offence, mademoiselle ; but 
I have sworn that I and no one but I shall conduct you to 
the Castle of Sonnenberg, where you will meet the Lenken- 
stein ladies, with whom I have the honour to be acquainted. 


254 


VITTORIA 


You see, you have nothing to fear if you play no foolish 
pranks, like a kicking filly in the pasture.” 

“ If it is your pleasure,” she said gravely ; but he 
obtruded the bow of an arm. She drew back. Her first 
blank despair at sight of the trap she had fallen into, was 
clearing before her natural high courage. 

“My little lady! my precious prima donna! do you 
refuse the most trifling aid from me ? It’s because I’m a 
German.” 

“There are many noble gentlemen who are Germans,” 
said Vittoria. 

“It’s because I’m a German; I know it is. But, don’t 
you see, Germany invades Italy, and keeps hold of her? 
Providence decrees it so — ask the priests! You are a 
delicious Italian damsel, and you will take the arm of a 
German.” 

Vittoria raised her face. “ Do you mean that I am your 
prisoner ? ” 

“ You did not look braver at La Scala; ” the captain bowed 
to her. 

“ Ah, I forgot,” said she ; “ you saw me there. If, signore, 
you will do me the favour to conduct me to the nearest inn, 
I will sing to you.” 

“ It is precisely my desire, signorina. You are not mar- 
ried to that man Guidascarpi, I presume? No, no: you 
are merely his . . . friend. May I have the felicity of 
hearing you call me your friend. Why, you tremble ! are 
you afraid of me ? ” 

“ To tell the truth, you talk too much to please me,” said 
Vittoria. 

The captain praised her frankness, and he liked it. The 
trembling of her frame still fascinated his eyes, but her 
courage and the absence of all womanly play and cowering 
about her manner impressed him seriously. He stood look- 
ing at her, biting his moustache, and trying to provoke her 
to smile. 

“Conduct you to the nearest inn; yes,” he said, as if 
musing. “To the nearest inn, where you will sing to me; 
sing to me. It is not an objectionable scheme. The inns 
will not be choice : but the society will be exquisite. Say 
first, I am your sworn cavalier?” 


THE DUEL IN THE PASS 


255 


“It does not become me to say that,” she replied, feign- 
ing a demure sincerity, on the verge of her patience. 

“You allow me to say it?” 

She gave him a look of fire and passed him; whereat, 
following her, he clapped hands, and affected to regard the 
movement as part of an operatic scena. “ It is now time 
to draw your dagger,” he said. “You have one, I’m cer- 
tain.” 

“Anything but touch me!” cried Yittoria, turning on 
him. “ I know that I am safe. You shall teaze me, if it 
amuses you.” 

“Am I not, now, the object of your detestation?” 

“You are near being so.” 

“You see! You put on no disguise; why should I?” 

This remark struck her with force. 

“ My temper is foolish,” she said softly. “ I have always 
been used to kindness.” 

He vowed that she had no comprehension of kindness; 
otherwise would she continue defiant of him? She denied 
that she was defiant : upon which he accused the hand in 
her bosom of clutching a dagger. She cast the dagger at 
his feet. It was nobly done, and he was not insensible to 
the courage and inspiration of the act ; for it checked a little 
example of a trial of strength that he had thought of exhib- 
iting to an armed damsel. 

“ Shall I pick it up for you? ” he said. 

“You will oblige me,” was her answer; but she could 
not control a convulsion of her underlip that her defen- 
sive instinct told her was best hidden. 

“Of course, you know you are safe,” he repeated her 
previous words, while examining the silver handle of the 
dagger. “Safe? certainly! Here is C. A. to Y. . . . A. 
neatly engraved : a gift ; so that the young gentleman may 
be sure the young lady will defend herself from lions and 
tigers and wild boars, if ever she goes through forests and 
over mountain passes. I will not obtrude my curiosity, 
but who is V. . . . A. ? ” 

The dagger was Carlo’s gift to her; the engraver, by 
singular misadventure, had put a capital letter for the con- 
cluding letter of her name instead of little a; she remem- 
bered the blush on Carlo’s face when she had drawn his 


256 


YITTORIA 


attention to the error, and her own blush when she had 
guessed its meaning. 

“ It spells my name, ” she said. 

“ Your assumed name of Yittoria. And who is C. A.?” 

“Those are the initials of Count Carlo Ammiani.” 

“Another lover? ” 

“ He is my sole lover. He is my betrothed. Oh, good 
God! ” she threw her eyes up to heaven; “how long am I 
to endure the torture of this man in my pathway? Go, sir, 
or let me go on. You are intolerable. It’s the spirit of a 
tiger. I have no fear of you.” 

“Nay, nay,” said Weisspriess, “I asked the question 
because I am under an obligation to run Count Carlo 
Ammiani through the body, and felt at once that I should 
regret the necessity. As to your not fearing me, really, 
far from wishing to hurt you ” 

Yittoria had caught sight of a white face framed in the 
autumnal forest above her head. So keen was the glad 
expression of her face, that Weisspriess looked up. 

“Come, Angelo, come to me,” she said confidently. 

Weisspriess plucked his sword out, and called to him 
imperiously to descend. 

Beckoned downward by white hand and flashing blade, 
Angelo steadied his feet and hands among drooping chestnut 
boughs, and bounded to Yittoria’s side. 

“Now march on,” Weisspriess waved his sword; “you 
are my prisoners.” 

“You,” retorted Angelo; “I know you; you are a man 
marked out for one of us. I bid you turn back, if you care 
for your body’s safety.” 

“ Angelo Guidascarpi, I also know you. Assassin! you 
double murderer! Defy me, and I slay you in the sight of 
your paramour.” 

“Captain Weisspriess, what you have spoken merits 
death. I implore of my Maker that I may not have to kill 
you.” 

“Fool! you are unarmed.” 

Angelo took his stilet in his fist. 

“ I have warned you, Captain Weisspriess. Here I stand. 
I dare you to advance.” 

“You pronounce my name abominably,” said the captain, 


THE DUEL IN THE PASS 


257 


dropping his sword’s point. “ If you think of resisting me, 
let us have no women looking on.” He waved his left hand 
at Vittoria. 

Angelo urged her to go. “ Step on for our Carlo’s sake.” 
But it was asking too much of her. 

“Can you fight this man?” she asked. 

“I can fight him and kill him.” 

“I will not step on,” she said. “Must you fight him?” 

“There is no choice.” 

Vittoria walked to a distance at once. 

Angelo directed the captain’s eyes to where, lower in the 
pass, there was a level plot of meadow. 

Weisspriess nodded. “The odds are in my favour, so 
you shall choose the ground.” 

All three went silently to the meadow. 

It was a circle of green on a projecting shoulder of the 
mountain, bounded by woods that sank toward the now 
shadowy South-flowing Adige vale, whose Western heights 
were gathering red colour above a strongly-marked brown 
line. Vittoria stood at the border of the wood, leaving the 
two men to their work. She knew when speech was useless. 

Captain Weisspriess paced behind Angelo until the latter 
stopped short, saying, “ Here ! ” 

“Wherever you please,” Weisspriess responded. “The 
ground is of more importance to you than to me.” 

They faced mutually; one felt the point of his stilet, the 
other the temper of his sword. 

“Killing you, Angelo Guidascarpi, is the killing of a 
dog. But there are such things as mad dogs. This is not 
a duel. It is a righteous execution, since you force me to 
it: I shall deserve your thanks for saving you from the 
hangman. I think you have heard that I can use my 
weapon. There’s death on this point for you. Make your 
peace with your Maker.” 

Weisspriess spoke sternly. He delayed the lifting of 
his sword that the bloody soul might pray. 

Angelo said, “You are a good soldier: you are a bad 
priest. Come on.” 

A nod of magnanimous resignation to the duties of his 
office was the captain’s signal of readiness. He knew 
exactly the method of fighting which Angelo must adopt, 


258 


VITTORIA 


and he saw that his adversary was supple, and sinewy, and 
very keen of eye. But, what can well compensate for even 
one additional inch of steel? A superior weapon wielded 
by a trained wrist in perfect coolness means victory, by 
every reasonable reckoning. In the present instance, it 
meant nothing other than an execution, as he had said. 
His contemplation of his own actual share in the perform- 
ance was nevertheless unpleasant; and it was but half 
willingly that he straightened out his sword and then 
doubled his arm. He lessened the odds in his favour con- 
siderably by his too accurate estimation of them. He was 
also a little unmanned by the thought that a woman was to 
see him using his advantage ; but she stood firm in her dis- 
tant corner, refusing to be waved out of sight. Weisspriess 
had again to assure himself that it was not a duel, but the 
enforced execution of a criminal who would not surrender, 
and who was in his way. Fronting a creature that would 
vainly assail him, and temporarily escape impalement by 
bounding and springing, dodging and backing, now here now 
there, like a dangling bob-cherry, his military gorge rose 
with a sickness of disgust. He had to remember as vividly 
as he could realize it, that this man’s life was forfeited, and 
that the slaughter of him was a worthy service to Countess 
Anna; also, that there were present reasons for desiring to 
be quit of him. He gave Angelo two thrusts, and bled him. 
The skill which warded off the more vicious one aroused his 
admiration. 

“ Pardon my blundering,” he said; “ I have never engaged 
a saltimbanque before.” 

They recommenced. Weisspriess began to weigh the 
sagacity of his opponent’s choice of open ground, where he 
could lengthen the discourse of steel by retreating and 
retreating, and swinging easily to right or to left. In the 
narrow track the sword would have transfixed him after a 
single feint. He was amused. Much of the cat was in his 
combative nature. An idea of disabling or dismembering 
Angelo, and forwarding him to Meran, caused him to trifle 
further with the edge of the blade. Angelo took a cut, and 
turned it on his arm ; free of the deadly point, he rushed in 
and delivered a stab; but Weisspriess saved his breast. 
Quick, they resumed their former positions. 


THE DUEL IN THE PASS 


259 


“I am really so unused to this game! ” said Weisspriess, 
apologetically. 

He was pale: his unsteady breathing, and a deflection 
of his dripping sword-wrist, belied his coolness. Angelo 
plunged full on him, dropped, and again reached his right 
arm; they hung, getting blood for blood, with blazing inter- 
penetrating eyes; — a. ghastly work of dark hands at half 
lock thrusting, and savage eyes reading the fiery pages of 
the book of hell. At last the Austrian got loose from the 
lock and hurled him off. 

“That bout was hotter,” he remarked; and kept his 
sword-point out on the whole length of the arm : he would 
have scorned another for so miserable a form either of 
attack or defence. 

Yittoria beheld Angelo circling round the point, which 
met him everywhere ; like the minute hand of a clock about 
to sound his hour, she thought. 

He let fall both his arms, as if beaten, which brought on 
the attack: by sheer evasion he got away from the sword’s 
lunge, and essayed a second trial of the bite of steel at close 
quarters; but the Austrian backed and kept him to the 
point, darting short alluring thrusts, thinking to tempt 
him on, or to wind him, and then to have him. Weiss- 
priess was chilled by a more curious revulsion from this 
sort of engagement than he at first experienced. He had 
become nervously incapable of those proper niceties of 
sword-play which, without any indecent hacking and maim- 
ing, should have stretched Angelo, neatly slain, on the mat 
of green, before he had a chance. Even now the sight of 
the man was distressing to an honourable duellist. Angelo 
was scored with blood-marks. Feeling that he dared not 
offer another chance to a fellow so desperately close-dealing, 
Weisspriess thrust fiercely, but delayed his fatal stroke. 
Angelo stooped and pulled up a handful of grass and soft 
earth in his left hand. 

“We have been longer about it than I expected,” said 
Weisspriess. 

Angelo tightened his fingers about the stringy grass-tuft; 
he stood like a dreamer, leaning over to the sword; sud- 
denly he sprang on it, received the point right in his side, 
sprang on it again, and seized it in his hand, and tossed it 


260 


VITTORIA 


up, and threw it square out in time to burst within guard 
and strike his stilet below the Austrian’s collar-bone. The 
blade took a glut of blood, as when the wolf tears quick at 
dripping flesh. It was at a moment when Weisspriess was 
courteously bantering him with the question whether he 
was ready, meaning that the affirmative should open the 
gates of death to him. 

The stilet struck thrice. Weisspriess tottered, and hung 
his jaw like a man at a spectre: amazement was on his 
features. 

“ Bemember Broncini and young Branciani ! ” 

Angelo spoke no other words throughout the combat. 

Weisspriess threw himself forward on a feeble lunge of 
his sword, and let the point sink in the ground, as a palsied 
cripple supports his frame, swayed, and called to Angelo to 
come on, and try another stroke, another — one more! He 
fell in a lump : his look of amazement was surmounted by 
a strong frown. 

His enemy was hanging above him panting out of wide 
nostrils, like a hunter’s horse above the long-tongued quarry, 
when Vittoria came to them. 

She reached her strength to the wounded man to turn his 
face to heaven. 

He moaned, “ Finish me;” and, as he lay with his back 
to earth, “ Good-evening to the old army ! ” 

A vision of leaping tumbrils, and long marching columns 
about to deploy, passed before his eyelids : he thought he 
had fallen on the battle-field, and heard a drum beat furi- 
ously in the back of his head ; and on streamed the cavalry, 
wonderfully caught away to such a distance that the figures 
were all diminutive, and the regimental colours swam in 
smoke, and the enemy danced a plume here and there out 
of the sea, while his mother and a forgotten Viennese girl 
gazed at him with exactly the same unfamiliar countenance, 
and refused to hear that they were unintelligible in the 
roaring of guns and floods and hurrahs, and the thumping 
of the tremendous big drum behind his head — “ somewhere 
in the middle of the earth : ” he tried to explain the locality 
of that terrible drumming noise to them, and Vittoria con- 
ceived him to be delirious ; but he knew that he was sensi- 
ble : he knew her and Angelo and the mountain-pass, and 


THE DUEL IN THE PASS 


261 


that he had a cigar-case in his pocket worked in embroidery 
of crimson, blue, and gold, by the hands of Countess Anna. 
He said distinctly that he desired the cigar-case to be 
delivered to Countess Anna at the Castle of Sonnenberg, 
and rejoiced on being assured that his wish was compre- 
hended and should be fulfilled ; but the marvel was, that his 
mother should still refuse to give him wine, and suppose 
him to be a boy: and when he was so thirsty and dry-lipped 
that though Mina was bending over him, just fresh from 
Mariazell, he had not the heart to kiss her or lift an arm 
to her ! — His horse was off with him — whither? — He was 
going down with a company of infantry in the Gulf of 
Venice: cards were in his hand, visible, though he could 
not feel them, and as the vessel settled for the black plunge, 
the cards flushed all honours, and his mother shook her 
head at him : he sank, and heard Mina sighing all the length 
of the water to the bottom, which grated and gave him two 
horrid shocks of pain: and he cried for a doctor, and 
admitted that his horse had managed to throw him; but 
wine was the cure, brandy was the cure, or water, water! 

Water was sprinkled on his forehead and put to his lips. 

He thanked Vittoria by name, and imagined himself that 
General, serving under old Wtirmser, of whom the tale is 
told that being shot and lying grievously wounded on the 
harsh Rivoli ground, he obtained the help of a French offi- 
cer in as bad case as himself, to moisten his black tongue 
and write a short testamentary document with his blood, 
and for a way of returning thanks to the Frenchman, he 
put down, among others, the name of his friendly enemy’s 
widow; whereupon both resigned their hearts to death; but 
the Austrian survived to find the sad widow and espouse 
her. 

His mutterings were full of gratitude, showing a vividly 
transient impression to what was about him, that vanished 
in a narrow-headed flight through clouds into lands of 
memory. It pained him, he said, that he could not offer 
her marriage; but he requested that when his chin was 
shaved his moustache should be brushed up out of the way 
of the clippers, for he and all his family were conspicuous 
for the immense amount of life which they had in them, 
and his father had lain six-and-thirty hours bleeding on 


262 


YITTORIA 


the field of Wagram, and had yet survived to beget a race 
as hearty as himself: — “Old Austria! thou grand old 
Austria ! ” 

The smile was proud, though faint, which accompanied 
the apostrophe, addressed either to his country or to his 
father’s personification ’of it; it was inexpressibly pathetic 
to Yittoria, who understood his “ Oesterreich,” and saw the 
weak and helpless bleeding man, with his eyeballs working 
under the lids, and the palms of his hands stretched out open 
— weak as a corpse, but conquering death. 

The arrival of Jacopo and Johann furnished help to carry 
him onward to the nearest place of shelter. Angelo would 
not quit her side until he had given money and directions 
to both the trembling fellows, together with his name, that 
they might declare the author of the deed at once if ques- 
tioned. He then bowed to Yittoria slightly and fled. They 
did not speak. 

The last sunbeams burned full crimson on the heights of 
the Adige mountains as Yittoria followed the two pale men 
who bore the wounded officer between them at a slow pace 
for the nearest village in the descent of the pass. 

Angelo watched them out of sight. The far-off red rocks 
spun round his eyeballs ; the meadow was a whirling thread 
of green; the brown earth heaved up to him. He felt that 
he was diving, and had the thought that there was but water 
enough to moisten his red hands, when his senses left him. 


CHAPTER XXVII 

A NEW ORDEAL 

The old city of Meran faces Southward to the yellow hills 
of Italy, across a broad vale, between two mountain -walls 
and torrent- waters. With one hand it takes the bounding 
green Passeyr, and with the other the brown-rolling Adige, 
and plunges them together in roaring foam under the shadow 
of the Western wall. It stands on the spur of a lower cen- 
tral eminence crowned by a grey castle, and the sun has it 


A NEW ORDEAL 


263 


from every aspect. The shape of a swan in water may 
describe its position, for the Vintschgau and the stony 
Passeyrthal make a strong curve on two sides as they 
descend upon it with their rivers, and the bosom of the 
city projects, while the head appears bending gracefully 
backward. Many castles are in view of it; the loud and 
tameless Passeyr girdles it with an emerald cincture; there 
is a sea of arched vineyard foliage at his feet. 

Vittoria reached the Castle of Sonnenberg about noon, and 
found empty courts and open doors. She sat in the hall 
like a supplicant, disregarded by the German domestics, 
who beheld a travel-stained humble-faced young Italian 
woman, and supposed that their duty was done in permit- 
ting her to rest; but the duchess’s maid Aennchen happening 
to come by, questioned her in moderately intelligible Italian, 
and hearing her name gave a cry, and said that all the com- 
pany were out hunting, shooting, and riding, in the vale 
below or the mountain above. “ Ah, dearest lady, what a 
fright we have all been in about you ! Signora Piaveni has 
not slept a wink, and the English gentleman has made great 
excursions every day to find you. This morning the soldier 
Wilhelm arrived with news that his master was bringing 
you on.” 

Vittoria heard that Laura and her sister and the duchess 
had gone down to Meran. Countess Lena von Lenkenstein 
was riding to see her betrothed shoot on a neighbouring 
estate. Countess Anna had disappeared early, none knew 
where. Both these ladies, and their sister-in-law, were in 
mourning for the terrible death of their brother, Count Paul. 
Aennchen repeated what she knew of the tale concerning 
him. 

The desire to see Laura first, and be embraced and coun- 
selled by her, and lie awhile in her arms to get a breath of 
home, made Vittoria refuse to go up to her chamber, and 
notwithstanding Aennchen’s persuasions, she left the castle, 
and went out and sat in the shaded cart-track. On the 
winding ascent she saw a lady in a black riding habit, lead- 
ing her horse and talking to a soldier, who seemed to be 
receiving orders from her, and presently saluted and turned 
his steps downward. The lady came on, and passed her 
without a glance. After entering the courtyard, where 


264 


VITTORIA 


she left her horse, she reappeared, and stood hesitating, 
but came up to Vittoria and said bluntly, in Italian: — 

“ Are you the signorina Campa, or Belloni, who is expected 
here?” 

The Austrian character and colouring of her features told 
Vittoria that this must be the Countess Anna or her sister. 

“I think I have been expected,” she replied. 

“You come alone?” 

“I am alone.” 

“ I am Countess Anna von Lenkenstein ; one of the guests 
of the castle.” 

“My message is to the Countess Anna.” 

“You have a message?” 

Vittoria lifted the embroidered cigar-case. Countess 
Anna snatched it from her hand. 

“What does this mean? Is it insolence? Have the 
kindness, if you please, not to address me in enigmas. 
Do you ” — Anna was deadly pale as she turned the cigar- 
case from side to side — “do you imagine that I smoke, 
par hasard?” She tried to laugh off her intemperate man- 
ner of speech ; the laugh broke at sight of a blood-mark on 
one corner of the case ; she started and said earnestly, “ I 
beg you to let me hear what the meaning of this may be?” 

“He lies in the Ultenthal, wounded; and his wish was 
that I should deliver it to you.” Vittoria spoke as gently 
as the harsh tidings would allow. 

“Wounded? My God! my God!” Anna cried in her 
own language. “Wounded? — in the breast, then! He 
carried it in his breast. Wounded by what? by what?” 

“ I can tell you no more.” 

“Wounded by whom?” 

“It was an honourable duel.” 

“ Are you afraid to tell me he has been assassinated? ” 

“It was an honourable duel.” 

“Hone could match him with the sword.” 

“His enemy had nothing but a dagger.” 

“Who was his enemy?” 

“It is no secret, but I must leave him to say.” 

“You were a witness of the fight?” 

“I saw it all.” 

“ The man was one of your party ! ” 


A NEW ORDEAL 


265 


“Ah!” exclaimed Vittoria, “lose no time with me, Coun- 
tess Anna, go to him at once, for though he lived when 
I left him, he was bleeding; I cannot say that he was not 
dying, and he has not a friend near.” 

Anna murmured like one overborne by calamity. “ My 
brother struck down one day — he the next ! ” She covered 
her face a moment, and unclosed it to explain that she 
wept for her brother, who had been murdered, stabbed in 
Bologna. 

“Was it Count Ammiani who did this?” she asked pas- 
sionately. 

Vittoria shook her head; she was divining a dreadful 
thing in relation to the death of Count Paul. 

“It was not?” said Anna. “They had a misunderstand- 
ing, I know. But you tell me the man fought with a 
dagger. It could not be Count Ammiani. The dagger is 
an assassin’s weapon, and there are men of honour in Italy 
still.” 

She called to a servant in the castle-yard, and sent him 
down with orders to stop the soldier Wilhelm. 

“We heard this morning that you were coming, and we 
thought it curious,” she observed; and called again for her 
horse to be saddled. “ How far is this place where he is 
lying? I have no knowledge of the Ultenthal. Has he a 
doctor attending him? When was he wounded? It is but 
common humanity to see that he is attended by an efficient 
doctor. My nerves are unstrung by the recent blow to our 

family ; that is why Oh, my father ! my holy father ! ” 

she turned to a grey priest’s head that was rising up the 
ascent, “ I thank God for you ! Lena is away riding ; she 
weeps constantly when she is within four walls. Come in 
and give me tears, if you can; I am half mad for the want 
of them. Tears first; teach me patience after.” 

The old priest fanned his face with his curled hat, and 
raised one hand as he uttered a gentle chiding in reproof 
of curbless human sorrow. Anna said to Vittoria, coldly, 
“ I thank you for your message : ” she walked into the castle 
by his side, and said to him there : “ The woman you saw 
outside has a guilty conscience. You will spend your time 
more profitably with her than with me. I am past all reli- 
gious duties at this moment. You know, father, that I can 


266 


VITTORIA 


open my heart. Probe this Italian woman; search her 
through and through. I believe her to be blood-stained 
and abominable. She hates us. She has sworn an oath 
against us. She is malignant.” 

It was not long before Anna issued forth and rode down 
to the vale. The priest beckoned to Yittoria from the 
gates. He really supposed her to have come to him with 
a burdened spirit. 

“ My daughter, ” he addressed her. The chapter on human 
error was opened: — “We are all of one family — all of us 
erring children — all of us bound to abnegate hatred: by 
love alone are we saved. Behold the Image of Love — the 
Virgin and Child. Alas! and has it been visible to man 
these more than eighteen hundred years, and humankind 
are still blind to it? Are their ways the ways of comfort 
and blessedness? Their ways are the ways of blood; paths 
to eternal misery among howling fiends. Why have they 
not chosen the sweet ways of peace, which are strewn with 
flowers, which flow with milk?” — The priest spread his 
hand open for Yittoria’ s, which she gave to his keeping, 
and he enclosed it softly, smoothing it with his palms, and 
retaining it as a worldly oyster between spiritual shells. 
“Why, my daughter, why, but because we do not bow to 
that Image daily, nightly, hourly, momently! We do not 
worship it that its seed may be sown in us. We do not 
cling to it, that in return it may cling to us.” 

He spoke with that sensuous resource of rich feeling 
which the contemplation of the Image does inspire. And 
Vittoria was not led reluctantly into the oratory of the 
castle to pray with him ; but she refused to confess. There- 
upon followed a soft discussion that was as near being acerb 
as nails are near velvet paws. 

Yittoria perceived his drift, and also the dear good heart 
of the old man, who meant no harm to her, and believed 
that he was making use of his professional weapons for her 
ultimate good. The inquisitions and the kindness went 
musically together; she responded to the kindness, but 
rebutted the inquisitions; at which he permitted a shade 
of discontent to traverse his features, and asked her with 
immense tenderness whether she had not much on her mind ; 
she expressing melodious gratitude for his endeavours to 


A NEW ORDEAL 


267 


give her comfort. He could not forbear directing an 
admonishment to her stubborn spirit, and was obliged, for 
the sake of impressiveness, to speak it harshly; until he 
saw, that without sweetness of manner and unction of 
speech, he left her untouched; so he was driven back to 
the form of address better suited to his nature and habits ; 
the end of which was that both were cooing. 

Vittoria was ashamed to tell herself how much she liked 
him and his ghostly brethren, whose preaching was always 
of peace, while the world was full of lurid hatred, strife, 
and division. She begged the baffled old man to keep her 
hand in his. He talked in Latinized Italian, and only ap- 
peared to miss the exact meaning of her replies when his 
examination of the state of her soul was resumed. They 
sat in the soft colour of the consecrated place like two who 
were shut away from earth. Often he thought that her 
tears were about to start and bring her low ; for she sighed 
heavily ; at the mere indication of the displacement of her 
hand, she looked at him eagerly, as if entreating him not 
to let it drop. 

“ You are a German, father?” she said. 

“I am of German birth, my daughter.” 

“ That makes it better. Eemain beside me. The silence 
is sweet music.” 

The silence was broken at intervals by his murmur of a 
call for patience ! patience ! 

This strange scene concluded with the entry of the duchess, 
who retired partly as soon as she saw them. Yittoria smiled 
to the old man, and left him : the duchess gave her a hushed 
welcome, and took her place. Yittoria was soon in Laura’s 
arms, where, after a storm of grief, she related the events 
of the journey following her flight from Milan. Laura inter- 
rupted her but once to exclaim, “ Angelo Guidascarpi! ” 
Yittoria then heard from her briefly that Milan was quiet, 
Carlo Ammiani in prison. It had been for tidings of her 
lover that she had hastened over the mountains to Meran. 
She craved for all that could be told of him, but Laura re- 
peated, as in a stupefaction, “ Angelo Guidascarpi ! ” She 
answered Yittoria’s question by saying, “You could not 
have had so fatal a companion.” 

“I could not have had so devoted a protector.” 


268 


VITTORIA 


“ There is such a thing as an evil star. We are all under 
it at present, to some degree ; hut he has been under it from 
his birth. My Sandra, my beloved, I think I have pardoned 
you, if I ever pardon anyone ! I doubt it ; but it is certain 
that I love you. You have seen Countess Anna, or I would 
have told you to rest and get over your fatigue. The Len- 
kensteins are here — my poor sister among them. You must 
show yourself. I was provident enough to call at your 
mother’s for a box of your clothes before I ran out of 
wretched Milan.” 

Further, the signora stated that Carlo might have to 
remain in prison. She made no attempt to give dark or 
fair colour to the misery of the situation ; telling Vittoria 
to lie on her bed and sleep, if sleep could be persuaded to 
visit her, she went out to consult with the duchess. Vit- 
toria lay like a dead body on the bed, counting the throbs 
of her heart. It helped her to fall into a state of insensi- 
bility. When she awoke, the room was dark ; she felt that 
some one had put a silken cushion across her limbs. The 
noise of a storm traversing the vale rang through the castle, 
and in the desolation of her soul, that stealthy act of kind- 
ness wrought in her till she almost fashioned a vow upon 
her lips that she would leave the world to toss its wrecks, 
and dedicate her life to God. 

For, 0 heaven! of what avail is- human effort? She 
thought of the Chief, whose life was stainless, but who 
stood proscribed because his aim was too high to be attained 
within compass of a mortal’s years. His error seemed that 
he had ever aimed at all. He seemed less wise than the 
old priest of the oratory. She could not disentangle him 
from her own profound humiliation and sense of fallen 
power. Her lover’s imprisonment accused her of some 
monstrous culpability, which she felt unrepentingly, not 
as we feel a truth, but as we submit to a terrible force of 
pressure. 

The morning light made her realize Carlo’s fate, to whom 
it would penetrate through a hideous barred loophole — a 
defaced and dreadful beam. She asked herself why she 
had fled from Milan. It must have been some cowardly 
instinct that had prompted her to fly. “Coward, coward! 
thing of vanity! you, a mere woman!” she cried out, and 


A NEW ORDEAL 


269 


succeeded in despising herself sufficiently to think it pos- 
sible that she had deserved to forfeit her lover’s esteem. 

It was still early when the duchess’s maid came to her, 
bringing word that her mistress would be glad to visit 
her. From the duchess Yittoria heard of the charge against 
Angelo. Respecting Captain Weisspriess, Amalia said that 
she had perceived his object in wishing to bring the great 
cantatrice to the castle ; and that it was a well-devised auda- 
cious scheme to subdue Countess Anna: — “We Austrians 
also can be jealous. The difference between us is, that it 
makes us tender, and you Italians savage.” She asked 
pointedly for an affirmative, that Yittoria was glad to reply 
with, when she said: “Captain Weisspriess was perfectly 
respectful to you?” She spoke comforting words of Carlo 
Ammiani, whom she hoped to see released as soon as the 
excitement had subsided. The chief comfort she gave was 
by saying that he had been originally arrested in mistake 
for his cousin Angelo. 

“ I will confide what is now my difficulty here frankly to 
you,” said the duchess. “ The Lenkensteins are my guests ; 
I thought it better to bring them here. Angelo Guidascarpi 
has slain their brother — a base deed ! It does not affect 
you in my eyes ; you can understand that in theirs it does. 
Your being present — Laura has told me everything — at 
the duel, or fight, between that young man and Captain 
Weisspriess, will make you appear as his accomplice — at 
least, to Anna it will ; she is the most unreasoning, the most 
implacable of women. She returned from the Ultenthal last 
night, and goes there this morning, which is a sign that Cap- 
tain Weisspriess lives. I should be sorry if we lost so good 
an officer. As she is going to take Father Bernardus with 
her, it is possible that the wound is serious. Do you know 
you have mystified the worthy man exceedingly ? What 
tempted you to inform him that your conscience was heavily 
burdened, at the same time that you refused to confess ? ” 

“ Surely he has been deluded about me,” said Yittoria. 

“ I do but tell you his state of mind in regard to you,” 
the duchess pursued. “ Under all the circumstances, this 
is what I have to ask : you are my Laura’s guest, therefore 
the guest of my heart. There is another one here, an Eng- 
lishman, a Mr. Powys ; and also Lieutenant Pierson, whom, 


270 


VITTORIA 


naughty rebel that you are, you have been the means of 
bringing into disgrace; naturally you would wish to see 
them : but my request is, that you should keep to these 
rooms for two or three days : the Lenkensteins will then be 
gone. They can hardly reproach me for retaining an invalid. 
If you go down among them, it will be a cruel meeting.” 

Vittoria thankfully consented to the arrangement. They 
agreed to act in accordance with it. 

The signora was a late riser. The duchess had come on 
a second visit to Vittoria when Laura joined them, and hear- 
ing of the arrangement, spurned the notion of playing craven 
before the Lenkensteins, who, she said, might think as it 
pleased them to think, but were never to suppose that there 
was any fear of confronting them. “ And now, at this very 
moment, when they have their triumph, and are laughing 
over Viennese squibs at her, she has an idea of hiding her 
head — she hangs out the white flag ! It can’t be. We go 
or we stay ; but if we stay, the truth is that we are too poor 
to allow our enemies to think poorly of us. You, Amalia, 
are victorious, and you may snap your fingers at opinion. 
It is a luxury we cannot afford. Besides, I wish her to see 
my sister and make acquaintance with the Austrianized 
Italian — such a wonder as is nowhere to be seen out of the 
Serabiglione and in the Lenkenstein family. Marriage is, 
indeed, a tremendous transformation. Bianca was once 
declared to be very like me.” 

The brow-beaten duchess replied to the outburst that she 
had considered it right to propose the scheme for Vittoria’s 
seclusion on account of the Guidascarpi. 

“ Even if that were a good reason, there are better on the 
other side,” said Laura ; adding, with many little backward 
tosses of the head, “ that story has to be related in full before 
I denounce Angelo and Binaldo.” 

“ It cannot be denied that they are assassins,” returned 
the duchess. 

“ It cannot be denied that they have killed one man or 
more. For you, Justice drops from the bough : we have to 
climb and risk our necks for it. Angelo stood to defend my 
darling here. Shall she be ashamed of him ? ” 

“ You will never persuade me to tolerate assassination,” 
said the duchess colouring. 


A NEW ORDEAL 


271 


“ Never, never; I shall never persuade you; never per- 
suade — never attempt to persuade any foreigner that we 
can be driven to extremes where their laws do not apply to 
us — are not good for us — goad a subjected people till their 
madness is pardonable. Nor shall I dream of persuading 
you that Angelo did right in defending her from that man.” 

“ I maintain that there are laws applicable to all human 
creatures,” said the duchess. “ You astonish me when you 
speak compassionately of such a criminal.” 

“No; not of such a criminal, of such an unfortunate 
youth, and my countryman, when every hand is turned 
against him, and all tongues are reviling him. But let 
Angelo pass; I pray to heaven he may escape. All who 
are worth anything in our country are strained in every 
fibre, and it’s my trick to be half in love with anyone of 
them when he is persecuted. I fancy he is worth more than 
the others, and is simply luckless. You must make allow- 
ances for us, Amalia — pity captive Judah ! ” 

“ I think, my Laura, you will never be satisfied till I have 
ceased to be Babylonian,” said the duchess, smiling and 
fondling Yittoria, to whom she said, “Am I not a com- 
plaisant German ? ” 

Yittoria replied gently, “ If they were like you ! ” 

“ Yes, if they were like the duchess,” said Laura, “ nothing 
would be left for us then but to hate ourselves. Fortunately, 
we deal with brutes.” 

She was quite pitiless in prompting Yittoria to hasten 
down, and marvelled at the evident reluctance in doing this 
slight duty, of one whose courage she had recently seen rise 
so high. Yittoria was equally amazed by her want of 
sympathy, which was positive coldness, and her disregard 
for the sentiments of her hostess. She dressed hesitatingly, 
responding with forlorn eyes to Laura’s imperious “ Come.” 
When at last she was ready to descend, Laura took her 
down, full of battle. The duchess had gone in advance to 
keep the peace. 

The ladies of the Lenkenstein family were standing at 
one window of the morning room conversing. Apart from 
them, Merthyr Powys and Wilfrid were examining one of 
the cumbrous antique arms ranged along the wall. The 
former of these old English friends stepped up to Yittoria 


272 


YITTORIA 


quickly and kissed her forehead. Wilfrid hung behind 
him ; he made a poor show of indifference, stammered 
English and reddened; remembering that he was under 
observation he recovered wonderfully, and asked, like a 
patron, “ How is the voice ? ” which would have been foolish 
enough to Vittoria’s more attentive hearing. She thanked 
him for the service he had rendered her at La Scala. 
Countess Lena, who looked hard at both, saw nothing to 
waken one jealous throb. 

“ Bianca, you expressed a wish to give a salute to my 
eldest daughter,” said Laura. 

The Countess of Lenkenstein turned her head. “ Have I 
done so ? ” 

“ It is my duty to introduce her,” interposed the duchess, 
and conducted the ceremony with a show of its embracing 
these ladies, neither one of whom changed her cold gaze. 

Careful that no pause should follow, she commenced chat- 
ting to the ladies and gentlemen alternately, keeping Yittoria 
under her peculiar charge. Merthyr alone seconded her 
efforts to weave the web of converse, which is an armistice 
if not a treaty on these occasions. 

“ Have you any fresh caricatures from Vienna ? ” Laura 
continued to address her sister. 

“ None have reached me,” said the neutral countess. 

“ Have they finished laughing ? ” 

“ I cannot tell.” 

“At any rate, we sing still,” Laura smiled to Vittoria. 
“You shall hear us after breakfast. I regret excessively 
that you were not in Milan on the Fifteenth. We will make 
amends to you as much as possible. You shall hear us after 
breakfast. You will sing to please my sister, Sandra mia, 
will you not ? ” 

Yittoria shook her head. Like those who have become 
passive, she read faces — the duchess’s imploring looks 
thrown from time to time to the Lenkenstein ladies, Wilfrid’s 
oppressed forehead, the resolute neutrality of the countess — 
and she was not only incapable of seconding Laura’s aggres- 
sive war, but shrank from the involvement and sickened at 
the indelicacy. Anna’s eyes were fixed on her and filled her 
with dread lest she should be resolving to demand a private 
interview. 


A NEW ORDEAL 


273 


“ You refuse to sing ? ” said Laura ; and under her breath, 
“ When I bid you not, you insist ! ” 

“ Can she possibly sing before she grows accustomed to 
the air of the place ? ” said the duchess. 

Merthyr gravely prescribed a week’s diet on grapes ante- 
cedent to the issuing of a note. “ Have you never heard 
what a sustained grape-diet will do for the bullfinches ? ” 

“ Never,” exclaimed the duchess. “ Is that the secret of 
their German education ? ” 

“ Apparently, for we cannot raise them to the same pitch 
of perfection in England.” 

“ I will try it upon mine. Every morning they shall have 
two big bunches.” 

“ Fresh plucked, and with the first sunlight on them. Be 
careful of the rules.” 

Wilfrid remarked, “To make them exhibit the results, 
you withdraw the benefit suddenly, of course ? ” 

“We imitate the general run of Fortune’s gifts as much 
as we can,” said Merthyr. 

“ That is the training for little shrill parrots : we have 
none in Italy,” Laura sighed, mock dolefully ; “ I fear the 
system would fail among us.” 

“ It certainly would not build Como villas,” said Lena. 

Laura cast sharp eyes on her pretty face. 

“It is adapted for caged voices that are required to 
chirrup to tickle the ears of boors.” 

Anna said to the duchess : “ I hope your little birds are 
all well this morning.” 

“ Come to them presently with me and let our ears be 
tickled,” the duchess laughed in answer; and the spiked 
dialogue broke, not to revive. 

The duchess had observed the constant direction of Anna’s 
eyes upon Vittoria during the repast, and looked an inter- 
rogation at Anna, who replied to it firmly. “I must be 
present,” the duchess whispered. She drew Vittoria away 
by the hand, telling Merthyr Powys that it was unkind to 
him, but that he should be permitted to claim his fair friend 
from noon to the dinner-bell. 

Laura and Bianca were discussing the same subject as the 
one for which Anna desired an interview with Vittoria. It 
was to know the conditions and cause of the duel between 


274 


VITTORIA 


Angelo Guidascarpi and Captain Weisspriess, and whither 
Angelo had fled. “ In other words, you cry for vengeance 
under the name of justice,” Laura phrased it, and put up a 
prayer for Angelo’s escape. 

The countess rebuked her. “ It is men like Angelo who 
are a scandal to Italy.” 

“ Proclaimed so; but by what title are they judged?” 
Laura retorted. “I have heard that his duel with Count 
Paul was fair, and that the grounds for it were just. 
Deplore it ; but to condemn an Italian gentleman without 
hearing his personal vindication, is infamous ; nay, it is 
Austrian. I know next to nothing of the story. Countess 
Ammiani has assured me that the brothers have a clear 
defence — not from your Vienna point of view : Italy and 
Vienna are different sides of the shield.” 

Vittoria spoke most humbly before Anna ; her sole irri- 
tating remark was, that even if she were aware of the direc- 
tion of Angelo’s flight, she would not betray him. 

The duchess did her utmost to induce her to see that he 
was a criminal, outlawed from common charity. “ These 
Italians are really like the Jews,” she said to Anna; “ they 
appear to me to hold together by a bond of race : you cannot 
get them to understand that any act can be infamous when 
one of their blood is guilty of it.” 

Anna thought gloomily : “ Then, why do you ally yourself 
to them ? ” 

The duchess, with Anna, Lena, and Wilfrid, drove to the 
Ultenthal. Vittoria and Merthyr had a long afternoon of 
companionship. She had been shyer in meeting him than in 
meeting Wilfrid, whom she had once loved. The tie between 
herself and Wilfrid was broken ; but Merthyr had remained 
true to his passionless affection, which ennobled him to her 
so that her heart fluttered, though she was heavily depressed. 
He relieved her by letting her perceive that Carlo Am- 
miani’s merits were not unknown to him. Merthyr smiled at 
Carlo for abjuring his patrician birth. He said: “ Count 
Ammiani will be cured in time of those little roughnesses 
of his adopted Republicanism. You must help to cure him. 
Women are never so foolish as men in these things.” 

When Merthyr had spoken thus, she felt that she might 
dare to press his hand. Sharing friendship with this stead- 


A NEW ORDEAL 


275 


fast nature and brotherly gentleman ; who was in the ripe 
manhood of his years ; who loved Italy and never despaired ; 
who gave great affection, and took uncomplainingly the pos- 
sible return for it ; — seemed like entering on a great plain 
open to boundless heaven. She thought that friendship was 
sweeter than love. Merthyr soon left the castle to meet his 
sister at Coire. Laura and Yittoria drove some distance 
up the Yintschgau, on the way to the Engadine, with him. 
He affected not to be downcast by the failure of the last 
attempt at a rising in Milan. “ Keep true to your Art ; and 
don’t let it be subservient to anything,” he said, and his final 
injunction to her was that she should get a German master 
and practise rigidly. 

Yittoria could only look at Laura in reply. 

“ He is for us, but not of us,” said Laura, as she kissed her 
fingers to him. 

“ If he had told me to weep and pray,” Yittoria mur- 
mured, “ I think I should by-and-by lift up my head.” 

“ By-and-by ! By~and-by I think I see a convent for 
me,” said Laura. 

Their faces drooped. 

Yittoria cried : “ Ah ! did he mean that my singing at La 
Scala was below the mark ? ” 

At this, Laura’s laughter came out in a volume. “And 
that excellent Father Bernardus thinks he is gaining a con- 
vert ! ” she said. 

Yittoria’s depression was real, though her strong vitality 
appeared to mock it. Letters from Milan, enclosed to the 
duchess, spoke of Carlo Ammiani’s imprisonment as a matter 
that might be indefinitely prolonged. His mother had been 
subjected to an examination ; she had not hesitated to confess 
that she had received her nephew in her house, but it could 
not be established against her that it was not Carlo whom 
she had passed off to the sbirri as her son. Countess Am- 
in iani wrote to Laura, telling her she scarcely hoped that 
Carlo would obtain his liberty save upon the arrest of 
Angelo: — “Therefore, what I most desire, I dare not pray 
for ! ” That line of intense tragic grief haunted Yittoria like 
a veiled head thrusting itself across the sunlight. Countess 
Ammiani added that she must give her son what news she 
could gather ; — “ Concerning you ,” said Laura, interpreting 


276 


YITTORIA 


the sentence : “ Bitter days do this good, they make a proud 
woman abjure the traditions of her caste.” A guarded an- 
swer was addressed, according to the countess’s directions, 
to Sarpo the bookseller, in Milan. For purposes of such a 
nature, Barto Bizzo turned the uneasy craven to account. 

It happened that one of the maids at Sonnenberg was 
about to marry a peasant of Meran, part proprietor of a 
vineyard, and the nuptials were to be celebrated at the 
castle. Among those who thronged the courtyard on the 
afternoon of the ceremony, Yittoria beheld her faithful 
Beppo, who related the story of his pursuit of her, and the 
perfidy of Luigi; — a story so lengthy, that his voluble 
tongue running at full speed could barely give the outlines 
of it. He informed her, likewise, that he had been sent for, 
while lying in Trent, by Captain Weisspriess, whom he had 
seen at an inn of the Ultenthal, weak but improving. Beppo 
was the captain’s propitiatory offering to Yittoria. Mean- 
while the ladies sat on a terrace, overlooking the court, where 
a stout fellow in broad green braces and blue breeches lay 
half across a wooden table, thrumming a zither, which set 
the groups in motion. The zither is a melancholy little 
instrument ; in range of expression it is to the harp what 
the winchat is to the thrush; or to the violin, what that 
bird is to the nightingale; yet few instruments are so 
exciting : here and there along these mountain valleys you 
may hear a Tyrolese maid set her voice to its plaintive thin 
tones ; but when the strings are swept madly there is mad 
dancing ; it catches at the nerves. “ Andreas ! Andreas ! ” 
the dancers shouted to encourage the player. Some danced 
with vine-poles ; partners broke and wandered at will, taking 
fresh partners, and occasionally huddling in confusion, when 
the poles were levelled and tilted at them, and they dispersed. 
Beppo, dancing mightily to recover the use of his legs, met 
his acquaintance Jacob Baumwalder Feckelwitz, and the pair 
devoted themselves to a rivalry of capers ; jump, stamp, 
shuffle, leg aloft, arms in air, yell and shriek : all took hands 
around them and streamed, tramping the measure, and the 
vine-poles guarded the ring. Then Andreas raised the song : 
“ Our Lady is gracious,” and immediately the whole assem- 
blage were singing praise to the Lady of the castle. Follow- 
ing which, wine being brought to Andreas, he drank to his 


A NEW ORDEAL 


277 


lady, to his lady’s guests, to the bride, to the bridegroom, — 
to everybody. He was now ready to improvize, and dashed 
thumb and finger on the zither, tossing up his face, swarthy- 
flushed : “ There was a steinbock with a beard.” Half-a- 
dozen voices repeated it, as to proclaim the theme. 

“ Alas ! a beard indeed, for there is no end to this animal. 
I know him ; ” said the duchess dolefully. 

“ There was a steinbock with a beard ; 

Of no gun was he afeard : 

Piff-paff left of him : piff-paff right of him : 

Piff-paff everywhere, where you get a sight of him.” 

The steinbock led through the whole course of a moun- 
taineer’s emotions and experiences, with piff-paff continually 
left of him and right of him and nothing hitting him. The 
mountaineer is perplexed ; an able man, a dead shot, who 
must undo the puzzle or lose faith in his skill, is a tremendous 
pursuer, and the mountaineer follows the steinbock ever. A 
sennderin at a sennhiitchen tells him that she admitted the 
steinbock last night, and her curled hair frizzled under the 
steinbock’s eyes. The case is only too clear : my goodness ! 

the steinbock is the . “ Der Teu. . . . ! ” said Andreas, 

with a comic stop of horror, the rhyme falling cleverly to 
“ ai.” Henceforth the mountaineer becomes transformed into 
a champion of humanity, hunting the wicked bearded stein- 
bock in all corners ; especially through the cabinet of those 
dark men who decree the taxes detested in Tyrol. 

The song had as yet but fairly commenced, when a break 
in the ‘ piff-paff ’ chorus warned Andreas that he was losing 
influence, women and men were handing on a paper and 
bending their heads over it; their responses hushed alto- 
gether, or were ludicrously inefficient. 

“ I really believe the poor brute has come to a Christian 
finish — this Ahasuerus of steinbocks ! ” said the duchess. 

The transition to silence was so extraordinary and abrupt, 
that she called to her chasseur to know the meaning of it. 
Feckelwitz fetched the paper and handed it up. It exhibited 
a cross done in blood under the word ‘ Meran,’ and bearing 
that day’s date. One glance at it told Laura what it meant. 
The bride in the court below was shedding tears : the bride- 
groom was lighting his pipe and consoling her : women were 


2T8 


VITTORIA 


chattering, men shrugging. Some said they had seen an old 
grey-haired hag ( liexe ) stand at the gates and fling down a 
piece of paper. A little boy whose imagination was alive 
with the tale of the steinbock, declared that her face was 
awful, and that she had only the use of one foot. A man 
patted him on the shoulder, and gave him a gulp of wine, 
saying with his shrewdest air : “ One may laugh at the devil 
once too often, though ! ” and that sentiment was echoed ; 
the women suggested in addition the possibility of the bride 
Lisa having something on her conscience, seeing that she 
had lived in a castle two years and more. The potential 
persuasions of Father Bernardus were required to get the 
bride to go away to her husband’s roof that evening : when 
she did make her departure, the superstitious peasantry were 
not a merry party that followed at her heels. 

At the break-up of the festivities Wilfrid received an inti- 
mation that his sister had arrived in Meran from Bormio. 
He went down to see her, and returned at a late hour. The 
ladies had gone to rest. He wrote a few underlined words, 
entreating Vittoria to grant an immediate interview in the 
library of the castle. The missive was entrusted to Aennchen. 
Vittoria came in alarm. 

“My sister is 'perfectly well,” said Wilfrid. “She has 
heard that Captain G-ambier has been arrested in the moun- 
tains ; she had some fears concerning you, which I quieted. 
What I have to tell you, does not relate to her. The man 
Angelo Guidascarpi is in Meran. I wish you to let the 
signora know that if he is not carried out of the city before 
sunset to-morrow, I must positively inform the superior 
officer of the district of his presence there.” 

This was their first private interview. Vittoria (for she 
knew him) had acceded to it, much fearing that it would 
lead to her having to put on her sex’s armour. To collect 
her wits, she asked tremblingly how Wilfrid had chanced to 
see Angelo. An old Italian woman, he said, had accosted 
him at the foot of the mountain, and hearing that he was 
truly an Englishman — “I am out of my uniform,” Wilfrid 
remarked with intentional bitterness — had conducted him to 
the house of an Italian in the city, where Angelo Guidascarpi 
was lying. 

“ 111 ? ” said Vittoria. 


A NEW ORDEAL 


279 


“ Just recovering. After that duel, or whatever it may 
be called, with Weisspriess, he lay all night out on the 
mountains. He managed to get the help of a couple of 
fellows, who led him at dusk into Meran, saw an Italian 
name over a shop, and — I will say for them that the rascals 
hold together. There he is, at all events.” 

“ Would you denounce a sick man, Wilfrid? ” 

“ I certainly cannot forget my duty upon every point.” 

“ You are changed ! ” 

“ Changed ! Am I the only one who is changed ? ” 

“ He must have supposed that it would be Merthyr. I 
remember speaking of Merthyr to him as our unchangeable 
friend. I told him Merthyr would be here.” 

“ Instead of Merthyr, he had the misfortune to see your 
changeable friend, if you will have it so.” 

“ But how can it be your duty to denounce him, Wilfrid. 
You have quitted that army.” 

“ Have I ? I have forfeited my rank, perhaps.” 

“ And Angelo is not guilty of a military offence.” 

“ He has slain one of a family that I am bound to respect.” 

“ Certainly, certainly,” said Vittoria hurriedly. 

Her forehead showed distress of mind ; she wanted Laura’s 
counsel. 

“ Wilfrid, do you know the whole story ? ” 

“ I know that he inveigled Count Paul to his house and 
slew him ; either he or his brother, or both.” 

“ I have been with him for days, Wilfrid. I believe that 
he would do no dishonourable thing. He is related ” 

“ He is the cousin of Count Ammiani.” 

“ Ah ! would you plunge us in misery ? ” 

“How?” 

“ Count Ammiani is my lover.” 

She* uttered it unblushingly, and with tender eyes fixed 
on him. 

“ Your lover ! ” he exclaimed, with vile emphasis. 

“He will be my husband,” she murmured, while the 
mounting hot colour burned at her temples. 

“ Changed — who is changed ? ” he said, in a vehement 
underneath. “ For that reason I am to be false to her who 
does me the honour to care for me ! ” 

“ I would not have you false to her in thought or deed.” 


280 


VITTOKIA 


“ You ask me to spare this man on account of his relation- 
ship to your lover, and though he has murdered the brother 
of the lady whom I esteem. What on earth is the meaning 
of the petition ? Really, you amaze me.” 

“ I appeal to your generosity, Wilfrid. I am Emilia.” 

“ Are you ? ” 

She gave him her hand. He took it, and felt at once the 
limit of all that he might claim. Dropping the hand, he 
said : — 

“ Will nothing less than my ruin satisfy you ? Since that 
night at La Scala, I am in disgrace with my uncle; I expect 
at any moment to hear that I am cashiered from the army, 
if not a prisoner. What is it that you ask of me now ? To 
conspire with you in shielding the man who has done a 
mortal injury to the family of which I am almost one. 
Your reason must perceive that you ask too much. I would 
willingly assist you in sparing the feelings of Count Am- 
miani ; and, believe me, gratitude is the last thing I require 
to stimulate my services. You ask too much ; you must see 
that you ask too much.” 

“I do,” said Vittoria. “ Good-night, Wilfrid.” 

He was startled to find her going, and lost his equable 
voice in trying to detain her. She sought relief in Laura’s 
bosom, to whom she recapitulated the interview. 

“Is it possible,” Laura said, looking at her intently, “that 
you do not recognize the folly of telling this Lieutenant 
Pierson that you were pleading to him on behalf of your 
lover ? Could anything be so monstrous, when one can see 
that he is malleable to the twist of your little finger ? Are 
you only half a woman, that you have no consciousness of 
your power? Probably you can allow yourself — enviable 
privilege ! — to suppose that he called you down at this late 
hour simply to inform you that he is compelled to do ’some- 
thing which will cause you unhappiness ! I repeat, it is an 
enviable privilege. Now, when the real occasion has come 
for you to serve us, you have not a single weapon — except 
these tears, which you are wasting on my lap. Be sure that 
if he denounces Angelo, Angelo’s life cries out against you. 
You have but to quicken your brain to save him. Did he 
expose his life for you or not? I knew that he was in 
Meran,” the signora continued sadly. “The paper which 


A NEW ORDEAL 


281 


frightened the silly peasants, revealed to me that he was 
there, needing help. I told you Angelo was under an evil 
star. I thought my day to-morrow would be a day of 
scheming. The task has become easy, if you will.” 

“ Be merciful ; the task is dreadful,” said Yittoria. 

“ The task is simple. You have an instrument ready to 
your hands. You can do just what you like with him — 
make an Italian of him ; make him renounce his engagement 
to this pert little Lena of Lenkenstein, break his sword, play 
Arlecchino, do what you please. He is not required for any 
outrageous performance. A week, and Angelo will have re- 
covered his strength ; you likewise may resume the statu- 
esque demeanour which you have been exhibiting here. 
For the space of one week you are asked for some natural 
exercise of your wits and compliancy. Hitherto what have 
you accomplished, pray ? ” Laura struck spitefully at Yit- 
toria’s degraded estimation of her worth as measured by 
events. “You have done nothing — worse than nothing. 
It gives me horrors to find it necessary to entreat you to 
look your duty in the face and do it, that even three or 
four Italian hearts — Carlo among them — may thank you. 
Hot Carlo, you say?” (Yittoria had sobbed, “Ho, not 
Carlo.”) “ How little you know men ! How little do you 
think how the obligations of the hour should affect a creat- 
ure deserving life ! Do you fancy that Carlo wishes you to 
be for ever reading the line of a copy-book and shaping your 
conduct by it ? Our Italian girls do this ; he despises them. 
Listen to me ; do not I know what is meant by the truth 
of love ? I pass through fire, and keep constant to it ; 
but you have some vile Romance of Chivalry in your 
head ; a modern sculptor’s figure, ‘ Meditation ; ’ that is 
the sort of bride you would give him in the stirring days of 
Italy. Do you think it is only a statue that can be true ? 
Perceive — will you not — that this Lieutenant Pierson is 
your enemy. He tells you as much ; surely the challenge 
is fair ? Defeat him as you best can. Angelo shall not be 
abandoned.” 

“ 0 me ! it is unendurable ; you are merciless,” said Yit- 
toria, shuddering. 

She saw the vile figure of herself aping smirks and tender 
meanings to her old lover.' It was a picture that she dared 


282 


VITTORIA 


not let her mind rest on : how then could she personate it ? 
All through her life she had been frank ; as a young woman, 
she was clear of soul; she felt that her simplicity was 
already soiled by the bare comprehension of the abominable 
course indicated by Laura. Degradation seemed to have 
been a thing up to this moment only dreamed of ; but now 
that it was demanded of her to play coquette and trick her 
womanhood with false allurements, she knew the sentiment 
of utter ruin ; she was ashamed. No word is more lightly 
spoken than shame. Vittoria’s early devotion to her Art, and 
subsequently to her Italy, had carried her through the term 
when she would otherwise have showed the natural mild 
attack of the disease. It came on her now in a rush, pene- 
trating every chamber of her heart, overwhelming her ; she 
could see no distinction between being ever so little false 
and altogether despicable. She had loathings of her body 
and her life. With grovelling difficulty of speech she en- 
deavoured to convey the sense of her repugnance to Laura, 
who leaned her ear, wondering at such bluntness of wit in a 
woman, and said, “ Are you quite deficient in the craft of 
your sex, child ? You can, and you will, guard yourself ten 
times better when your aim is simply to subject him.” But 
this was not reason to a spirit writhing in the serpent-coil 
of fiery blushes. 

Yittoria said, “ I shall pity him so.” 

She meant she would pity Wilfrid in deluding him. It 
was a taint of the hypocrisy which comes with shame. 

The signora retorted : “ I can’t follow the action of your 
mind a bit.” 

Pity being a form of tenderness, Laura supposed that she 
would intuitively hate the man who compelled her to do 
what she abhorred. 

They spent the greater portion of the night in this debate. 


THE ESCAPE OF ANGELO 


283 


CHAPTER XXVIII 

THE ESCAPE OF ANGELO 

Vittoria knew better than Laura that the task was easy ; 
she had but to override her aversion to the show of trifling 
with a dead passion ; and when she thought of Angelo lying 
helpless in the swarm of enemies, and that Wilfrid could 
consent to use his tragic advantage to force her to silly love- 
play, his selfishness wrought its reflection, so that she 
became sufficiently unjust to forget her marvellous personal 
influence over him. Even her tenacious sentiment concern- 
ing his white uniform was clouded. She very soon ceased 
to be shamefaced in her own fancy. At dawn she stood at 
her window looking across the valley of Meran, and felt the 
whole scene in a song of her heart, with the faintest recol- 
lection of her having passed through a tempest overnight. 
The warm Southern glow of the enfoliaged valley recalled 
her living Italy, and Italy her voice. She grew wakefully 
glad : it was her nature, not her mind, that had twisted in 
the convulsions of last night’s horror of shame. The chirp 
of healthy blood in full-flowing veins dispersed it ; and as a 
tropical atmosphere is cleared by the hurricane, she lost her 
depression and went down among her enemies possessed by 
an inner delight, that was again of her nature, not of her 
mind. She took her gladness for a happy sign that she had 
power to rise buoyant above circumstances ; and though 
aware that she was getting to see things in harsh outlines, 
she was unconscious of her haggard imagination. 

The Lenkensteins had projected to escape the blandish- 
ments of Vienna by residing during the winter in Venice, 
where Wilfrid and his sister were to be the guests of the 
countess : — a pleasant prospect that was dashed out by an 
official visit from Colonel Zofel of the Meran garrison, 
through whom it was known that Lieutenant Pierson, while 
enjoying his full liberty to investigate the charms of the 
neighbourhood, might not extend his excursions beyond a 
pedestrian day’s limit ; — he was, in fact, under surveillance. 
The colonel formally exacted his word of honour that he 


284 


VITTORIA 


would not attempt to pass the bounds, and explained to the 
duchess that the injunction was favourable to the lieutenant, 
as implying that he must be ready at any moment to receive 
the order to join his regiment. Wilfrid bowed with a proper 
soldierly submission. Respecting the criminal whom his 
men were pursuing, Colonel Zofel said that he was sparing 
no efforts to come on his traces ; he supposed, from what he 
had heard in the Ultenthal, that Guidascarpi was on his 
back somewhere within a short range of Meran. Vittoria 
strained her ears to the colonel’s German ; she fancied his 
communication to be that he suspected Angelo’s presence in 
Meran. 

The official part of his visit being terminated, the colonel 
addressed some questions to the duchess concerning the night 
of the famous Fifteenth at La Scala. He was an amateur, 
and spoke with enthusiasm of the reports of the new prima 
donna. The duchess perceived that he was asking for an 
introduction to the heroine of the night, and graciously said 
that perhaps that very prima donna would make amends to 
him for his absence on the occasion. Yittoria checked a 
movement of revolt in her frame. She cast an involuntary 
look at Wilfrid. " Now it begins,” she thought, and went 
to the piano : she had previously refused to sing. Wilfrid 
had to bend his head over his betrothed and listen to her 
whisperings. He did so, carelessly swaying his hand to the 
measure of the aria, with an increasing bitter comparison of 
the two voices. Lena persisted in talking ; she was indig- 
nant at his abandonment of the journey to Venice; she re- 
proached him as feeble, inconsiderate, indifferent. Then for 
an instant she would pause to hear the voice, and renew her 
assault. “ We ought to be thankful that she is not singing 
a song of death and destruction to us ! The archduchess is 
coming to Venice. If you are presented to her and please 
her, and get the writs of naturalization prepared, you will 
be one of us completely, and your fortune is made. If you 
stay here — why should you stay ? It is nothing but your 
uncle’s caprice. I am too angry to care for music. If you 
stay, you will earn my contempt. I will not be buried 
another week in such a place. I am tired of weeping. We 
all go to Venice : Captain Weisspriess follows us. We are 
to have endless Balls, an opera, a Court there — with whom 


THE ESCAPE OF ANGELO 


285 


am I to dance, pray, when I am ont of mourning ? Am I 
to sit and govern my feet under a chair, and gaze like an 
imbecile nun ? It is too preposterous. I am betrothed to 
you ; I wish, I wish to behave like a betrothed. The arch- 
duchess herself will laugh to see me chained to a chair. I 
shall have to reply a thousand times to ‘ Where is he ? ’ 
What can I answer ? i Wouldn’t come/ will be the only true 
reply.” 

During this tirade, Yittoria was singing one of her old 
songs, well known to Wilfrid, which brought the vision of 
a foaming weir, and moonlight between the branches of a 
great cedar-tree, and the lost love of his heart sitting by his 
side in the noising stillness. He was sure that she could be 
singing it for no one but for him. The leap taken by his 
spirit from this time to that, was shorter than from the past 
back to the present. 

“You do not applaud,” said Lena, when the song had 
ceased. 

He murmured: “I never do, in drawing-rooms.” 

“ A cantatrice expects it everywhere ; these creatures live 
on it.” 

“ I’ll tell her, if you like, what we thought of it, when I 
take her down to my sister, presently.” 

“ Are you not to take me down ? ” 

“ The etiquette is to hand her up to you.” 

“ Ho, no ! ” Lena insisted, in abhorrence of etiquette ; but 
Wilfrid said pointedly that his sister’s feelings must be 
spared. “Her husband is an animal : he is a millionaire city- 
of-London merchant ; conceive him ! He has drunk him- 
self gouty on Port wine, and here he is for the grape-cure.” 

“ Ah ! in that England of yours, women marry for wealth,” 
said Lena. 

“Yes, in your Austria they have a better motive,” he 
interpreted her sentiment. 

“ Say, in our Austria.” 

“ In our Austria, certainly.” 

“ And with our holy religion ? ” 

“ It is not yet mine.” 

“It will be ?” She put the question eagerly. 

Wilfrid hesitated, and by his adept hesitation succeeded 
in throwing her off the jealous scent. 


286 


YITTORIA 


“ Say that it will be, my Wilfrid ! ” 

“ You must give me time.’’ 

“This subject always makes you cold.” 

“ My own Lena ! ” 

“ Can I be, if we are doomed to be parted when we die ? ” 

There is small space for compunction in a man’s heart 
when he is in Wilfrid’s state, burning with the revival of 
what seemed to him a superhuman attachment. He had no 
design to break his acknowledged bondage to Countess Lena, 
and answered her tender speech almost as tenderly. 

It never occurred to him, as he was walking down to 
Meran with Yittoria, that she could suppose him to be 
bartering to help rescue the life of a wretched man in return 
for soft confidential looks of entreaty ; nor did he reflect, 
that when cast on him, they might mean no more than the 
wish to move him for a charitable purpose. The complete- 
ness of her fascination was shown by his reading her entirely 
by his own emotions, so that a lowly-uttered word, or a 
wavering unwilling glance, made him think that she was 
subdued by the charm of the old days. 

“ Is it here ? ” she said, stopping under the first Italian 
name she saw in the arcade of shops. 

“ How on earth have you guessed it ? ” he asked, as- 
tonished. 

She told him to wait at the end of the arcade, and passed 
in. When she joined him again, she was downcast. They 
went straight to Adela’s hotel, where the one thing which 
gave her animation was the hearing that Mr. Sedley had 
met an English doctor there, and had placed himself in his 
hands. Adela dressed splendidly for her presentation to 
the duchess. Having done so, she noticed Vittoria’s de- 
pressed countenance and difficult breathing. She com- 
manded her to see the doctor. Yittoria consented, and 
made use of him. She could tell Laura confidently at night 
that Wilfrid would not betray Angelo, though she had not 
spoken one direct word to him on the subject. 

Wilfrid was peculiarly adept in the idle game he played. 
One who is intent upon an evil end is open to expose his 
plan. . But he had none in view ; he lived for the luxurious 
sensation of being near the woman who fascinated him, and 
who was now positively abashed when by his side. Adela 


THE ESCAPE OF ANGELO 


287 


suggested to him faintly — she believed it was her spon- 
taneous idea — that he might be making his countess jealous. 
He assured her that the fancy sprang from scenes which 
she remembered, and that she could have no idea of the 
pride of a highborn Austrian girl, who was incapable of 
conceiving jealousy of a person below her class. Adela 
replied that it was not his manner so much as Emilia’s 
which might arouse the suspicion; but she immediately 
affected to appreciate the sentiments of a highborn Austrian 
girl toward a cantatrice, whose gifts we regard simply as 
an aristocratic entertainment. Wilfrid induced his sister 
to relate Yittoria’s early history to Countess Lena; and 
himself almost wondered, when he heard it in bare words, 
at that haunting vision of the glory of Vittoria at La Scala 
— where, as he remembered, he would have run against 
destruction to cling to her lips. Adela was at first alarmed 
by the concentrated wrathful ness which she discovered in 
the bosom of Countess Anna, who, as their intimacy waxed, 
spoke of the intruding opera siren in terms hardly proper 
even to married women ; but it seemed right, as being pos- 
sibly aristocratic. Lena was much more tolerant. “ I have 
just the same enthusiasm for soldiers that my Wilfrid has 
for singers,” she said; and it afforded Adela exquisite 
pleasure to hear her tell how that she had originally heard 
of the ‘eccentric young Englishman,’ General Pierson’s 
nephew, as a Lustspiel — a comedy; and of his feats on 
horseback, and his duels, and his — “he was very wicked 
over here, you know ; ” Lena laughed. She assumed the 
privileges of her four-and-twenty years and her rank. Her 
marriage was to take place in the Spring. She announced 
it with the simplicity of an independent woman of the 
world, adding, “ That is, if my Wilfrid will oblige me by 
not plunging into further disgrace with the General.” 

“No; you will not marry a man who is under a cloud,” 
Anna subjoined. 

“ Certainly not a soldier,” said Lena. “ What it was 
exactly that he did at La Scala, I don’t know, and don’t 
care to know, but he was then ignorant that she had touched 
the hand of that Guidascarpi. I decide by this — he was 
valiant; he defied everybody: therefore I forgive him. 
He is not in disgrace with me. I will reinstate him.” 


VITTORIA 


288 


“ You have your own way of being romantic,” said Anna. 
“ A soldier who forgets his duty is in my opinion only a 
brave fool.” 

“It seems to me that a great many gallant officers are 
fond of fine voices,” Lena retorted. 

“ No doubt it is a fashion among them,” said Anna. 

Adela recoiled with astonishment when she began to see 
the light in which the sisters regarded Vittoria; and she 
was loyal enough to hint and protest on her friend’s behalf. 
The sisters called her a very good soul. “It may not be in 
England as over here,” said Anna. “We have to submit 
to these little social scourges.” 

Lena whispered to Adela, “ An angry woman will think 
the worst. I have no doubt of my Wilfrid. If I had!” 
Her eyes flashed. Eire was not wanting in her. 

The difficulties which tasked the amiable duchess to 
preserve an outward show of peace among the antago- 
nistic elements she gathered together were increased by 
the arrival at the castle of Count Lenkenstein, Bianca’s 
husband, and head of the family, from Bologna. He was 
a tall and courtly man, who had one face for his friends 
and another for the reverse party ; which is to say, that 
his manners could be bad. Count Lenkenstein was ac- 
companied by Count Serabiglione, who brought Laura’s 
children with their Roman nurse, Assunta. Laura kissed 
her little ones, and sent them out of her sight. Vittoria 
found her home in their play and prattle. She needed 
a refuge, for Count Lenkenstein was singularly brutal in 
his bearing toward her. He let her know that he had 
come to Meran to superintend the hunt for the assassin, 
Angelo Guidascarpi. He attempted to exact her promise in 
precise speech that she would be on the spot to testify 
against Angelo when that foul villain should be caught. 
He objected openly to Laura’s children going about with 
her. Bitter talk on every starting subject was exchanged 
across the duchess’s table. She herself was in disgrace on 
Laura’s account, and had to practise an overflowing sweet- 
ness, with no one to second her efforts. The two noblemen 
spoke in accord on the bubble revolution. The strong hand 
— ay, the strong hand ! The strong hand disposes of vermin. 
Laura listened to them, pallid with silent torture. “ Since 


THE ESCAPE OF ANGELO 


289 


the rascals have taken to assassination, we know that we 
have them at the dregs,” said Count Lenkenstein. “ A cord 
round the throats of a few scores of them, and the country- 
will learn the virtue of docility.” 

Laura whispered to her sister: “Have you espoused a 
hangman ? ” 

Such dropping of deadly shells in a quiet society went 
near to scattering it violently; but the union was neces- 
sitous. Count Lenkenstein desired to confront Vittoria with 
Angelo ; Laura would not quit her side, and Amalia would 
not expel her friend. Count Lenkenstein complained roughly 
of Laura’s conduct ; nor did Laura escape her father’s re- 
proof. “Sir, you are privileged to say what you will to 
me,” she responded, with the humility which exasperated 
him. 

“ Yes, you bend, you bend, that you may be stiff-necked 
when it suits you,” he snapped her short. 

“ Surely that is the text of the sermon you preach to our 
Italy ! ” 

“ A little more, as you are running on now, madame, and 
‘our Italy’ will be froth on the lips. You see, she is 
ruined.” 

“Chi lo fa, lo sa,” hummed Laura; “but I would avoid 
quoting you as that authority.” 

“ After your last miserable fiasco, my dear ! ” 

“It was another of our school exercises. We had not 
been good boys and girls. We had learnt our lesson imper- 
fectly. We have received our punishment, and we mean to 
do better next time.” 

“Behave seasonably, fittingly; be less of a wasp; school 
your tongue.” 

“ Bianca is a pattern to me, I am aware,” said Laura. 

“ She is a good wife.” 

“ I am a poor widow.” 

“ She is a good daughter.” 

“ I am a wicked rebel.” 

“ And you are scheming at something now,” said the little 
nobleman, sagacious so far ; but he was too eager to read the 
verification of the tentative remark in her face, and she per- 
ceived that it was a guess founded on her show of spirit. 

“ Scheming to contain my temper, which is much tried,” 


290 


VITTORIA 


she said. “But I suppose it supports me. I can always 
keep up against hostility.” 

“ You provoke it ; you provoke it.” 

“My instinct, then, divines my medicine.” 

“ Exactly, my dear ; your personal instinct. That insti- 
gates you all. And none are so easily conciliated as these 
Austrians. Conciliate them, and you have them.” Count 
Serabiglione diverged into a repetition of his theory of the 
policy and mission of superior intelligences, as regarded his 
system for dealing with the Austrians. 

Nurse Assunta’s jealousy was worked upon to separate the 
children from Vittoria. They ran down with her no more to 
meet the vast bowls of grapes in the morning and feather 
their hats with vine leaves. Deprived of her darlings, the 
loneliness of her days made her look to Wilfrid for com- 
miseration. Eather Bernardus was too continually exhor- 
tative, and fenced too much to “ hit the eyeball of her 
conscience,” as he phrased it, to afford her repose. Wilfrid 
could tell himself that he had already done much for her ; 
for if what he had done were known, his career, social and 
military, was ended. This idea being accompanied by a 
sense of security delighted him; he was accustomed to 
inquire of Angelo’s condition, and praise the British doctor 
who was attending him gratuitously. “ I wish I could get 
him out of the way,” he said, and frowned as in a mental 
.struggle. Vittoria heard him repeat his “I wish!” It 
heightened greatly her conception of the sacrifice he would 
be making on her behalf and charity’s. She spoke with a 
reverential tenderness, such as it was hard to suppose a 
woman capable of addressing to other than the man who 
moved her soul. The words she uttered were pure thanks ; 
it was the tone which sent them winged and shaking seed. 
She had spoken partly to prompt his activity, but her self- 
respect had been sustained by his avoidance of the dreaded 
old themes, and that grateful feeling made her voice musi- 
cally rich. 

“ I dare not go to him, but the doctor tells me the fever 
has left him, Wilfrid; his wounds are healing; but he is 
bandaged from head to foot. The sword pierced his side 
twice, and his arms and hands are cut horribly. He cannot 
yet walk. If he is discovered he is lost. Count Lenken- 


THE ESCAPE OF ANGELO 


291 


stein has declared that he will stay at the castle till he has 
him his prisoner. The soldiers are all round us. They 
know that Angelo is in the ring. They have traced him all 
over from the Valtellina to this Ultenthal, and only cannot 
guess where he is in the lion’s jaw. I rise in the morning, 
thinking ‘ Is this to be the black day ? 9 He is sure to be 
caught.” 

“ If I could hit on a plan,” said Wilfrid, figuring as 
though he had a diorama of impossible schemes revolving 
before his eyes. 

“I could believe in the actual whispering of an angel if 
you did. It was to guard me that Angelo put himself in 
peril.” 

“ Then,” said Wilfrid, “ I am his debtor. I owe him as 
much as my life is worth.” 

“ Think, think,” she urged ; and promised affection, devo- 
tion, veneration, vague things, that were too like his own 
sentiments to prompt him pointedly. Yet he so pledged him- 
self to her by word, and prepared his own mind to conceive 
the act of service, that (as he did not reflect) circumstance 
might at any moment plunge him into a gulf. Conduct of 
this sort is a challenge sure to be answered. 

One morning Yittoria was gladdened by a letter from 
Rocco Ricci, who had fled to Turin. He told her that the 
king had promised to give her a warm welcome in his 
capital, where her name , was famous. She consulted with 
Laura, and they resolved to go as soon as Angelo could 
stand on his feet. Turin was cold Italy, but it was Italy ; 
and from Turin the Italian army was to flow, like the 
Mincio from the Garda lake. “ And there, too, is a stage,” 
Yittoria thought, in a suddenly revived thirst for the stage 
and a field for work. She determined to run down to Meran 
and see Angelo. Laura walked a little way with her, till 
Wilfrid, alert for these occasions, joined them. On the 
commencement of the zig-zag below, there were soldiers, the 
sight of whom was not confusing. Military messengers 
frequently came up to the castle where Count Lenkenstein, 
assisted by Count Serabiglione, examined their depositions, 
the Italian in the manner of a winding lawyer, the German 
of a gruff judge. Half-way down the zig-zag Yittoria cast 
a preconcerted signal back to Laura. The soldiers had a 


292 


VITTORIA 


pair of prisoners between their ranks ; Yittoria recognized 
the men who had carried Captain Weisspriess from the 
ground where the duel was fought. A quick divination told 
her that they held Angelo’s life on their tongues. They 
must have found him in the mountain-pass while hurrying 
to their homes, and it was they who had led him to Meran. 
On the Passey r bridge, she turned and said to Wilfrid, 
“ Help me now. Send instantly the doctor in a carriage to 
the place where he is lying.” 

Wilfrid was intent on her flushed beauty and the half- 
compressed quiver of her lip. 

She quitted him and hurried to Angelo. Her joy broke 
out in a cry of thankfulness at sight of Angelo; he had 
risen from his bed; he could stand, and he smiled. 

“That Jacopo is just now the nearest link to me,” he 
said, when she related her having seen the two men guarded 
by soldiers ; he felt helpless, and spoke in resignation. She 
followed his eye about the room till it rested on the stilet. 
This she handed to him. “If they think of having me 
alive ! ” he said softly. The Italian and his wife who had 
given him shelter and nursed him came in, and approved 
his going, though they did not complain of what they might 
chance to have incurred. He offered them his purse, and 
they took it. Minutes of grievous expectation went by; 
Vittoria could endure them no longer ; she ran out to the 
hotel, near which, in the shade of a poplar, Wilfrid was 
smoking quietly. He informed her that his sister and the 
doctor had driven out to meet Captain Gambier ; his brother- 
in-law was alone upstairs. Her look of amazement touched 
him more shrewdly than scorn, and he said, “ What on earth 
can I do ? ” 

“ Order out a carriage. Send your brother-in-law in it. If 
you tell him 1 for your health/ he will go.” 

“ On my honour, I don’t know where those three words 
would not send him,” said Wilfrid ; but he did not move, 
and was for protesting that he really could not guess what 
was the matter, and the ground for all this urgency. 

Vittoria compelled her angry lips to speak out her sus- 
picions explicitly, whereupon he glanced at the sun-glare in 
a meditation, occasionally blinking his eyes. She thought, 
“ Oh, heaven ! can he be waiting for me to coax him ? ” It 


THE ESCAPE OF ANGELO 


293 


was the truth, though it would have been strange to him to 
have heard it. She grew sure that it was the truth ; never 
had she despised living creature so utterly as when she mur- 
mured, “ My best friend ! my brother ! my noble Wilfrid ! my 
old beloved ! help me now, without loss of a minute” 

It caused his breath to come and go unevenly. 

“ Repeat that — once, only once,” he said. 

She looked at him with the sorrowful earnestness which, 
as its meaning was shut from him, was so sweet. 

“ You will repeat it by-and-by ? — another time ? Trust 
me to do my utmost. Old beloved ! What is the meaning 
of ‘ old beloved ’ ? One word in explanation. If it means 
anything, I would die for you ! Emilia, do you hear ? — die 
for you ! To me you are nothing old or by-gone, whatever I 
may be to you. To me — yes, I will order the carriage — you 
are the Emilia — listen ! listen ! Ah ! you have shut your 
ears against me. I am bound in all seeming, but I — you 
drive me mad; you know your power. Speak one word, 
that I may feel — that I may be convinced ... or not a 
single word; I will obey you without. I have said that 
you command my life.” 

In a block of carriages on the bridge, Yittoria perceived a 
lifted hand. It was Laura’s ; Beppo was in attendance on 
her. Laura drove up and said : “ You guessed right ; where 
is he ? ” The communications between them were more 
indicated than spoken. Beppo had heard Jacopo confess 
to his having conducted a wounded Italian gentleman into 
Meran. “That means that the houses will be searched 
within an hour,” said Laura; “my brother-in-law Bear is 
radiant.” She mimicked the Lenkenstein physiognomy 
spontaneously in the run of her speech. “ If Angelo can 
help himself ever so little, he has a fair start.” A look was 
cast on Wilfrid; Yittoria nodded — Wilfrid was entrapped. 

“Englishmen we can trust,” said Laura, and requested 
him to step into her carriage. He glanced round the open 
space. Beppo did the same, and beheld the chasseur Jacob 
Baumwalder Eeckelwitz crossing the bridge on foot, but he 
said nothing. Wilfrid was on the step of the carriage, for 
what positive object neither he nor the others knew, when 
his sister and the doctor joined them. Captain Gambier was 
still missing. 


294 


VITTORIA 


“He would have done anything for us,” Vittoria said in 
Wilfrid’s hearing. 

“ Tell us what plan you have,” the latter replied fretfully. 

She whispered : “ Persuade Adela to make her husband 
drive out. The doctor will go too, and Beppo. They shall 
take Angelo. Our carriage will follow empty, and bring 
Mr. Sedley back.” 

Wilfrid cast his eyes up in the air, at the monstrous 
impudence of the project. “A storm is coming on,” he 
suggested, to divert her reading of his grimace; but she 
was speaking to the doctor, who readily answered her aloud : 
“If you are certain of what you say.” The remark incited 
Wilfrid to be no subordinate in devotion; handing Adela 
from the carriage, while the doctor ran up to Mr. Sedley, 
he drew her away. Laura and Vittoria watched the motion 
of their eyes and lips. 

“Will he tell her the purpose?” said Laura. 

Vittoria smiled nervously: “He is fibbing.” 

Marking the energy expended by Wilfrid in this art, the 
wiser woman said : “ Be on your guard the next two minutes 
he gets you alone.” 

“You see his devotion.” 

“Does he see his compensation? But he must help us 
at any hazard.” 

Adela broke away from her brother twice, and each time 
he fixed her to the spot more imperiously. At last she ran 
into the hotel; she was crying. “ A bad economy of tears,” 
said Laura, commenting on the dumb scene, to soothe her 
savage impatience. “ In another twenty minutes we shall 
have the city gates locked.” 

They heard a window thrown up ; Mr. Sedley’s head came 
out, and peered at the sky. Wilfrid said to Vittoria: “I 
can do nothing beyond what I have done, I fear.” 

She thought it was a petition for thanks, but Laura knew 
better ; she said : “ I see Count Lenkenstein on his way to 
the barracks.” 

Wilfrid bowed: “I may be able to serve you in that 
quarter.” 

He retired: whereupon Laura inquired how her friend 
could reasonably suppose that a man would ever endure 
being thanked in public. 


THE ESCAPE OF ANGELO 


295 


“ I shall never understand and never care to understand 
them,” said Yittoria. 

“ It is a knowledge that is forced on us, my dear. May 
heaven make the minds of our enemies stupid for the next 
five hours ! — Apropos of what I was saying, women and 
men are in two hostile camps. We have a sort of general 
armistice and everlasting strife of individuals — Ah!” she 
clapped hands on her knees, “here comes your doctor; I 
could fancy I see a pointed light on his head. Men of 
science, my Sandra, are always the humanest.” 

The chill air of wind preceding thunder was driving round 
the head of the vale, and Mr. Sedley, wrapped in furs, and 
feebly remonstrating with his medical adviser, stepped into 
his carriage. The doctor followed him, giving a grave 
recognition of Vittoria’s gaze. Both gentlemen raised their 
hats to the ladies, who alighted as soon as they had gone in 
the direction of the Vintschgau road. 

“One has only to furnish you with money, my Beppo,” 
said Yittoria, complimenting his quick apprehensiveness. 
“ Buy bread and cakes at one of the shops, and buy wine. 
You will find me where you can, when you have seen him 
safe. I have no idea of where my home will be. Perhaps 
England.” 

“Italy, Italy! faint heart,” said Laura. 

Furnished with money, Beppo rolled away gaily. 

The doubt was in Laura whether an Englishman’s wits 
were to be relied on in such an emergency ; but she admitted 
that the doctor had looked full enough of serious meaning, 
and that the Englishman named Merthyr Powys was keen 
and ready. They sat a long half-hour, that thumped itself 
out like an alarm-bell, under the poplars, by the clamouring 
Passeyr, watching the roll and spring of the waters, and the 
radiant foam, while band-music played to a great company 
of visitors, and sounds of thunder drew near. Over the 
mountains above the Adige, the leaden fingers of an advance 
of the thunder-cloud pushed slowly, and on a sudden a 
mighty gale sat heaped black on the mountain-top and blew. 
Down went the heads of the poplars, the river staggered in 
its leap, the vale was shuddering grey. It was like the 
transformation in a fairy tale; Beauty had taken her old 
cloak about her, and bent to calamity. The poplars 


296 


VITTORIA 


streamed their length sideways, and in the pauses of the 
strenuous wind nodded and dashed wildly and white over 
the dead black water, that waxed in foam and hissed, 
showing its teeth like a beast enraged. Laura and Y ittoria 
joined hands and struggled for shelter. The tent of a trav- 
elling circus from the South, newly-pitched on a grass-plot 
near the river, was caught up and whirled in the air and 
flung in the face of a marching guard of soldiery, whom it 
swathed and bore sheer to earth, while on them and around 
them a line of poplars fell flat, the wind whistling over them. 
Laura directed Vittoria’s eyes to the sight. “See,” she 
said, and her face was set hard with cold and excitement, 
so that she looked a witch in the uproar; “would you not 
say the devil is loose now Angelo is abroad?” Thunder 
and lightning possessed the vale, and then a vertical rain. 
At the first gleam of sunlight, Laura and Vittoria walked 
up to the Laubengasse — the street of the arcades, where 
they made purchases of numerous needless articles, not 
daring to enter the Italian’s shop. A woman at a fruit- 
stall opposite to it told them that no carriage could have 
driven up there. During their great perplexity, mud and 
rain-stained soldiers, the same whom they had seen borne 
to earth by the flying curtain, marched before the shop; 
the shop and the house were searched; the Italian and his 
old limping wife were carried away. 

“Tell me now, that storm was not Angelo’s friend!” 
Laura muttered. 

“Can he have escaped?” said Vittoria. 

“ He is ‘ on horseback. ’ ” Laura quoted the Italian proverb 
to signify that he had flown; how, she could not say, and 
none could inform her. The joy of their hearts rose in one 
fountain. 

“ I shall feel better blood in my body from this moment,” 
Laura said; and Vittoria, “Oh! we can be strong, if we 
only resolve.” 

“ You want to sing? ” 

“I do.” 

“I shall find pleasure in your voice now.” 

“ The wicked voice ! ” 

“ Yes, the very wicked voice ! But I shall be glad to hear 
it. You can sing to-night, and drown those Lenkensteins.” 


THE ESCAPE OF ANGELO 


297 


“ If my Carlo could hear me ! ” 

“Ah!” sighed the signora, musing. “He is in prison 
now. I remember him, the dearest little lad, fencing with 
my husband for exercise after they had been writing all 
day. When Giacomo was imprisoned, Carlo sat outside the 
prison walls till it was time for him to enter; his chin and 
upper lip were smooth as a girl's. Giacomo said to him, 
‘May you always have the power of going out, or not have 
a wife waiting for you.' Here they come.” (She spoke 
of tears.) “It's because I am joyful. The channel for 
them has grown so dry that they prick and sting. Oh, 
Sandra! it would be pleasant to me if we might both be 
buried for seven days, and have one long howl of weakness 
together. A little bite of satisfaction makes me so tired. 
I believe there's something very bad for us in our always 
being at war, and never, never gaining ground. Just one 
spark of triumph intoxicates us. Look at all those people 
pouring out again. They are the children of fair weather. 
I hope the state of their health does not trouble them too 
much. Vienna sends consumptive patients here. If you 
regard them attentively, you will observe that they have an 
anxious air. Their constitutions are not sound; they fear 
they may die.” 

Laura's irony was unforced; it was no more than a subtle 
discord naturally struck from the scene by a soul in contrast 
with it. 

They beheld the riding forth of troopers and a knot of 
officers hotly conversing together. At another point the 
duchess and the Lenkenstein ladies, Count Lenkenstein, 
Count Serabiglione, and Wilfrid paced up and down, wait- 
ing for music. Laura left the public places and crossed an 
upper bridge over the Passeyr, near the castle, by which 
route she skirted vines and dropped over sloping meadows 
to some shaded boulders where the Passeyr found a sandy 
bay, and leaped in transparent green, and whitened and 
swung twisting in a long smooth body down a narrow 
chasm, and noised below. The thundering torrent stilled 
their sensations: and the water, making battle against 
great blocks of porphyry and granite, caught their thoughts. 
So strong was the impression of it on Vittoria's mind, that 
for hours after, every image she conceived seemed proper 


298 


V1TT0RIA 


to the inrush and outpour; the elbowing, the tossing, the 
foaming, the burst on stones, and silvery bubbles under 
and silvery canopy above, the chattering and huzzaing; all 
working on to the one -toned fall beneath the rainbow on 
the castle-rock. 

Next day, the chasseur Jacob Baumwalder Eeckelwitz 
deposed in full company at Sonnenberg, that, obeying Count 
Serabiglione’s instructions, he had gone down to the city, 
and had there seen Lieutenant Pierson with the ladies in 
front of the hotel ; he had followed the English carriage, 
which took up a man who was standing ready on crutches 
at the corner of the Laubengasse, and drove rapidly out of 
the North-western gate, leading to Schlanders and Mals and 
the Engadine. He had witnessed the transfer of the crip- 
pled man from one carriage to another, and had raised 
shouts and given hue and cry, but the intervention of the 
storm had stopped his pursuit. 

He was proceeding to say what his suppositions were. 
Count Lenkenstein lifted his finger for Wilfrid to follow 
him out of the room. Count Serabiglione went at their 
heels. Then Count Lenkenstein sent for his wife, whom 
Anna and Lena accompanied. 

“ How many persons are you going to ruin in the course 
of your crusade, my dear?” the duchess said to Laura. 

“ Dearest, I am penitent when I succeed,” said Laura. 

“ If that young man has been assisting you, he is irre- 
trievably ruined.” 

“I am truly sorry for him.” 

“ As for me, the lectures I shall get in Vienna are terrible 
to think of. This is the consequence of being the friend of 
both parties, and a peace-maker.” 

Count Serabiglione returned alone from the scene at the 
examination, rubbing his hands and nodding affably to his 
daughter. He maliciously declined to gratify the monster 
of feminine curiosity in the lump, and doled out the scene 
piecemeal. He might state, he observed, that it was he 
who had lured Beppo to listen at the door during the exami- 
nation of the prisoners ; and who had then planted a spy on 
him — following the dictation of precepts exceedingly old. 
a We are generally beaten, duchess; I admit it; and yet we 
generally contrive to show the brains. As I say, wed brains 


THE ESCAPE OF ANGELO 


299 


to brute force ! — but my Laura prefers to bring about a con- 
test instead of an union, so that somebody is certain to be 
struck, and ” — the count spread out his arms and bowed 
his head — “deserves the blow.” He informed them that 
Count Lenkenstein had ordered Lieutenant Pierson down to 
Meran, and that the lieutenant might expect to be cashiered 
within five days. “What does it matter?” he addressed 
Yittoria. “It is but a shuffling of victims; Lieutenant 
Pierson in the place of Guidascarpi! I do not object.” 

Count Lenkenstein withdrew his wife and sisters from 
Sonnenberg instantly. He sent an angry message of adieu 
to the duchess, informing her that he alone was responsible 
for the behaviour of the ladies of his family. The poor 
duchess wept. “ This means that I shall be summoned to 
Vienna for a scolding, and have to meet my husband,” she 
said to Laura, who permitted herself to be fondled, and 
barely veiled her exultation in her apology for the mischief 
she had done. An hour after the departure of the Lenken- 
steins, the castle was again officially visited by Colonel 
Zofel. Yittoria and Laura received an order to quit the dis- 
trict of Meran before sunset. The two firebrands dropped 
no tears. “I really am sorry for others when I succeed,” 
said Laura, trying to look sad upon her friend. 

“No; the heart is eaten out of you both by excitement,” 
said the duchess. 

Her tender parting, “Love me,” in the ear of Yittoria, 
melted one heart of the two. 

Count Serabiglione continued to be buoyed up by his own 
and his daughter’s recent display of a superior intellectual 
dexterity until the carriage was at the door and Laura pre- 
sented her cheek to him. He said, “ You will know me a 
wise man when I am off the table.” His gesticulations 
expressed “ Ruin, headlong ruin ! ” He asked her how she 
could expect him to be for ever repairing her follies. He 
was going to Vienna; how could he dare to mention her 
name there? Not even in a trifle would she consent to be 
subordinate to authority. Laura checked her replies — the 
surrendering of a noble Italian life to the Austrians was 
such a trifle ! She begged only that a poor wanderer might 
depart with a father’s blessing. The count refused to give 
it; he waved her off in a fury of reproof; and so got 


800 


YITTORIA 


smoothly over the fatal moment when money, or the prom- 
ise of money, is commonly extracted from parental sources, 
as Laura explained his odd behaviour to her companion. 
The carriage-door being closed, he regained his courtly com- 
posure; his fury was displaced by a chiding finger, which 
he presently kissed. Father Bernardus was on the steps 
beside the duchess, and his blessing had not been withheld 
from Yittoria, though he half confessed to her that she was 
a mystery in his mind, and would always be one. 

“He can understand robust hostility,” Laura said, when 
Yittoria recalled the look of his benevolent forehead and 
drooping eyelids ; “ but robust ductility does astonish him. 
He has not meddled with me ; yet I am the one of the two 
who would be fair prey for an enterprising spiritual father, 
as the destined man of heaven will find out some day.” 

She bent and smote her lap. “ How little they know us, 
my darling! They take fever for strength, and calmness 
for submission. Here is the world before us, and I feel 
that such a man, were he to pounce on me now, might snap 
me up and lock me in a praying-box with small difficulty. 
And I am the inveterate rebel ! What is it nourishes you 
and keeps you always aiming straight when you are alone? 
Once in Turin, I shall feel that I am myself. Out of Italy 
I have a terrible craving for peace. It seems here as if I 
must lean down to him, my beloved, who has left me.” 

Yittoria was in alarm lest Wilfrid should accost her while 
she drove from gate to gate of the city. They passed under 
the archway of the gate leading up to Schloss Tyrol, and 
along the road bordered by vines. An old peasant woman 
stopped them with the signal of a letter in her hand. 
“Here it is,” said Laura, and Yittoria could not help smil- 
ing at her shrewd anticipation of it. 

“May I follow?” 

Nothing more than that was written. 

But the bearer of the missive had been provided with a 
lead pencil to obtain the immediate reply. 

“ An admirable piece of foresight!” Laura’s honest ex- 
clamation burst forth. 

Yittoria had to look in Laura’s face before she could 
gather her will to do the cruel thing which was least cruel. 
She wrote firmly : — 

“ Never follow me.” 


THE TOBACCO-RIOTS 


301 


CHAPTEE XXIX 

EPISODES OE THE REVOLT AND THE WAR 
THE TOBACCO-RIOTS RINALDO GUIDASCARPI 

Anna yon Lenkenstein was one who could wait for 
vengeance. Lena punished on the spot, and punished her- 
self most. She broke off her engagement with Wilfrid, 
while at the same time she caused a secret message to be 
conveyed to him, telling him that the prolongation of his 
residence in Meran would restore him to his position in the 
army. 

Wilfrid remained at Meran till the last days of December. 

It was winter in Milan, turning to the new year — the 
year of flames for continental Europe. A young man with 
a military stride, but out of uniform, had stepped from a 
travelling carriage and entered a cigar-shop. Upon calling 
for cigars, he was surprised to observe the woman who was 
serving there keep her arms under her apron. She cast a 
look into the street, where a crowd of boys and one or two 
lean men had gathered about the door. After some delay, 
she entreated her customer to let her pluck his cloak half- 
way over the counter ; at the same time she thrust a cigar- 
box under that concealment, together with a printed song 
in the Milanese dialect. He lifted the paper to read it, 
and found it tough as Euss. She translated some of the 
more salient couplets. Tobacco had become a dead busi- 
ness, she said, now that the popular edict had gone forth 
against ‘smoking gold into the pockets of the Tedeschi.’ 
None smoked except officers and Englishmen. 

“ I am an Englishman, ” he said. 

“ And not an officer? ” she asked; but he gave no answer. 
“Englishmen are rare in winter, and don’t like being 
mobbed,” said the woman. 

Nodding to her urgent petition, he deferred the lighting 
of his cigar. The vetturino requested him to jump up 
quickly, and a howl of “No smoking in Milan — fuori! — 
down with tobacco-smokers ! ” beset the carriage. He tossed 


302 


VICTORIA 


half-a-dozen cigars on the pavement derisively. They were 
scrambled for, as when a pack of wolves are diverted by a 
garment dropped from the flying sledge, but the unluckier 
hands came after his heels in fuller howl. He noticed the 
singular appearance of the streets. Bands of the scum of 
the population hung at various points : from time to time a 
shout was raised at a distance, “ Abasso il zigarro ! ” and 
“ Away with the cigar ! ” went an organized file-firing of 
cries along the open place. Several gentlemen were mobbed, 
and compelled to fling the cigars from their teeth. He saw 
the polizia in twos and threes taking counsel and shrugging, 
evidently too anxious to avoid a collision. Austrian soldiers 
and subalterns alone smoked freely ; they puffed the harder 
when the yells and hootings and whistlings thickened at their 
heels. Sometimes they walked on at their own pace ; or, 
when the noise swelled to a crisis, turned and stood fast, 
making an exhibition of curling smoke, as a mute form of 
contempt. Then commenced hustlings and a tremendous 
uproar; sabres were drawn, the whitecoats planted them- 
selves back to back. Milan was clearly in a condition of 
raging disease. The soldiery not only accepted the chal- 
lenge of the mob, but assumed the offensive. Here and 
there they were seen crossing the street to puff obnoxiously 
in the faces of people. Numerous subalterns were abroad, 
lively for strife, and bright with the signal of their readi- 
ness. An icy wind blew down from the Alps, whitening 
the housetops and the ways, but every street, corso, and 
piazza was dense with loungers, as on a summer evening; 
the clamour of a skirmish anywhere attracted streams of 
disciplined rioters on all sides; it was the holiday of 
rascals. 

Our traveller had ordered his vetturino to drive slowly 
to his hotel, that he might take the features of this novel 
scene. He soon showed his view of the case by putting 
an unlighted cigar in his mouth. The vetturino noted that 
his conveyance acted as a kindling-match to awaken cries 
in quiet quarters, looked round, and grinned savagely at 
the sight of the cigar. 

“ Drop it, or I drop you/’ he said; and hearing the com- 
mand to drive on, pulled up short. 

They were in a narrow way leading to the Piazza de’ 


THE TOBACCO-RIOTS 


303 


Mercanti. While the altercation was going on between 
them, a great push of men emerged from one of the close 
courts some dozen paces ahead of the horse, bearing forth 
a single young officer in their midst. 

“ Signore, would you like to be the froth of a boiling of 
that sort?” The vetturino seized the image at once to 
strike home his instance of the danger of outraging the 
will of the people. 

Our traveller immediately unlocked a case that lay on 
the seat in front of him, and drew out a steel scabbard, 
from which he plucked the sword, and straightway leaped 
to the ground. The officer’s cigar had been dashed from 
his mouth. : he stood at bay, sword in hand, meeting a rush 
with a desperate stroke. The assistance of a second sword 
got him clear of the fray. Both hastened forward as the 
crush melted with the hiss of a withdrawing wave. They 
interchanged exclamations : — 

"Is it you, Jenna! ” 

“In the devil’s name, Pierson, have you come to keep 
your appointment in mid-winter?” 

“Come on: I’ll stick beside you.” 

“ On, then! ” 

They glanced behind them, heeding little the tail of 
ruffians whom they had silenced. 

“We shall have plenty of fighting soon, so we’ll smoke 
a cordial cigar together,” said Lieutenant Jenna, and at once 
struck a light and blazed defiance to Milan afresh — an 
example that was necessarily followed by his comrade. 
“ What has happened to you, Pierson? Of course, I knew 
you were ready for our bit of play — though you’ll hear 
what I said of you. How the deuce could you think of 
running off with that opera girl, and getting a fellow in the 
mountains to stab our merry old Weisspriess, just because 
you fancied he was going to slip a word or so over the back 
of his hand in Countess Lena’s ear? No wonder she’s shy 
of you now.” 

“So, that’s the tale afloat,” said Wilfrid. “Come to my 
hotel and dine with me. I suppose that cur has driven my 
luggage there.” 

Jenna informed him that officers had to muster in bar- 
racks every evening. 


304 


VITTORIA 


“ Come and see your old comrades ; they’ll like you better 
in bad luck — there’s the comfort of it : hang the human 
nature! She’s a good old brute, if you don’t drive her 
hard. Our regiment left Verona in November. There we 
had tolerable cookery; come and take the best we can give 
you.” • 

But this invitation Wilfrid had to decline. 

“Why?” said Jenna. 

He replied: “I’ve stuck at Meran three months. I did 
it in obedience to what I understood from Colonel Zofel to 
be the General’s orders. When I was as perfectly dry as 
a baked Egyptian, I determined to believe that I was not 
only in disgrace, but dismissed the service. I posted to 
Botzen and Riva, on to Milan; and here I am. The least 
I can do is to show myself here.” 

“Very well, then, come and show yourself at our table,” 
said Jenna. “Listen: we’ll make a furious row after sup- 
per, and get hauled in by the collar before the General. 
You can swear you have never been absent from duty: 
swear the General never gave you forcible furlough. I’ll 
swear it; all our fellows will swear it. The General will 
say, ‘Oh! a very big lie’s equal to a truth; big brother to 
a fact,’ or something; as he always does, you know. Face 
it out. We can’t spare a good stout sword in these times. 
On with me, my Pierson.” 

“I would,” said Wilfrid, doubtfully. 

A douse of water from a window extinguished their cigars. 

Lieutenant Jenna wiped his face deliberately, and light- 
ing another cigar, remarked — “This is the fifth poor devil 
who has come to an untimely end within an hour. It is 
brisk work. Now, I’ll swear I’ll smoke this one out.” 

The cigar was scattered in sparks from his lips by a hat 
skilfully flung. He picked it up miry and cleaned it, 
observing that his honour was pledged to this fellow. The 
hat he trampled into a muddy lump. Wilfrid found it 
impossible to ape his coolness. He swung about for an 
adversary. Jenna pulled him on. 

“A salute from a window,” he said. “We can’t storm the 
houses. The time’ll come for it — and then, you cats! ” 

Wilfrid inquired how long this state of things had been 
going on. J enna replied that they appeared to be in the 


THE TOBACCO-RIOTS 


305 


middle of it; — nearly a week. Another week, and their 
day would arrive ; and then ! 

“Have you heard anything of a Count Ammiani here?” 
said Wilfrid. 

“Oh! he’s one of the lot, I believe. We have him fast, 
as we’ll have the bundle of them. Keep eye on those 
dogs behind us, and manoeuvre your cigar. The plan is, 
to give half-a-dozen bright puffs, and then keep it in your 
fist; and when you see an Italian head, volcano him like 
fury. Yes, I’ve heard of that Ammiani. The scoundrels 
made an attempt to get him out of prison — I fancy he’s in 
the city prison — last Friday night. I don’t know exactly 
where he is; but it’s pretty fair reckoning to say that he’ll 
enjoy a large slice of the next year in the charming solitude 
of Spielberg, if Milan is restless. Is he a friend of yours? ” 

“Not by any means,” said Wilfrid. 

“Mio prigione!” Jenna mouthed with ineffable con- 
temptuousness; “he’ll have time to write his memoirs, as 
one of the dogs did. I remember my mother crying over 
the book. I read it? Not I! I never read books. My 
father said — the stout old colonel — ‘Prison seems to make 
these Italians take an interest in themselves.’ ‘Oh! ’ says 
my mother, ‘why can’t they be at peace with us? ’ ‘That’s 
exactly the question,’ says my father, ‘we’re always putting 
to them.’ And so I say. Why can’t they let us smoke our 
cigars in peace?” 

Jenna finished by assaulting a herd of faces with smoke. 

“Pig of a German!” was shouted; and “Porco, porco,” 
was sung in a scale of voices. Jenna received a blinding 
slap across the eyes. He staggered back; Wilfrid slashed 
his sword in defence of him. He struck a man down. 
“Blood! blood! ” cried the gathering mob, and gave space, 
but hedged the couple thickly. Windows were thrown up; 
forth came a rain of household projectiles. The cry of 
“ Blood ! blood ! ” was repeated by numbers pouring on 
them from the issues to right and left. It is a terrible cry 
in a city. In a city of the South it rouses the wild beast 
in men to madness. Jenna smoked triumphantly and blew 
great clouds, with an eye aloft for the stools, basins, chairs, 
and water descending. They were in the middle of one of 
the close streets of old Milan. The man felled by Wilfrid 


306 


VITTOEIA 


was raised on strong arms, that his bleeding head might be 
seen of all, and a dreadful hum went round. A fire of 
missiles, stones, balls of wax, lumps of dirt, sticks of broken 
chairs, began to play. Wilfrid had a sudden gleam of the 
face of his Verona assailant. He and Jenna called “ Follow 
me/’ in one breath, and drove forward with sword-points, 
which they dashed at the foremost; by dint of swift semi- 
circlings of the edges they got through, but a mighty voice 
of command thundered; the rearward portion of the mob 
swung rapidly to the front, presenting a scattered second 
barrier; Jenna tripped on a fallen body, lost his cigar, and 
swore that he must find it. A dagger struck his sword-arm. 
He staggered and flourished his blade in the air, calling 
“ On ! ” without stirring. “ This infernal cigar ! ” he said ; 
and to the mob, “What mongrel of you took my cigar?” 
Stones thumped on his breast; the barrier-line ahead grew 
denser. “I’ll go at them first; you’re bleeding,” said Wil- 
frid. They were refreshed by the sound of German cheer- 
ing, as in approach. Jenna uplifted a crow of the regimental 
hurrah of the charge ; it was answered ; on they went and 
got through the second fence, saw their comrades, and were 
running to meet them, when a weighted ball hit Wilfrid on 
the back of the head. He fell, as he believed, on a cushion 
of down, and saw thousands of saints dancing with lamps 
along cathedral aisles. 

The next time he opened his eyes he fancied he had 
dropped into the vaults of the cathedral. His sensation of 
sinking was so vivid that he feared lest he should be going 
still further below. There was a lamp in the chamber, and 
a young man sat reading by the light of the lamp. Vision 
danced fantastically on Wilfrid’s brain. He saw that he 
rocked as in a ship, yet there was no noise of the sea; 
nothing save the remote thunder haunting empty ears at 
strain for sound. He looked again ; the young man was 
gone, the lamp was flickering. Then he became conscious of 
a strong ray on his eyelids; he beheld his enemy gazing 
down on him and swooned. It was with joy, that when his 
wits returned, he found himself looking on the young man 
by the lamp. “ That other face was a dream,” he thought, 
and studied the aspect of the young man with the unwearied 
attentiveness of partial stupor, that can note accurately, but 


RINALDO GUIDASCARPI 


30T 


cannot deduce from its noting, and is inveterate in patience 
because it is unideaed. Memory wakened first. 

“ Guidascarpi ! ” be said to himself. 

The name was uttered half aloud. The young man started 
and closed his book. 

“ You know me ? ” he asked. 

“ You are Guidascarpi ? ” 

“ I am.” 

“ Guidascarpi, I think I helped to save your life in 
Meran.” 

The young man stooped over him. “You speak of my 
brother Angelo. I am Rinaldo. My debt to you is the 
same, if you have served him.” 

“ Is he safe ? ” 

“ He is in Lugano.” 

“ The signorina Yittoria ? ” 

“ In Turin.” 

“ Where am I ? ” 

The reply came from another mouth than Rinaldo’s. 

“You are in the poor lodging of the shoemaker, whose 
shoes, if you had thought fit to wear them, would have con- 
ducted you anywhere but to this place.” 

“ Who are you ? ” Wilfrid moaned. 

“ You ask who I am. I am the Eye of Italy. I am the 
Cat who sees in the dark.” Barto Rizzo raised the lamp 
and stood at his feet. “Look straight. You know me, I 
think.” 

Wilfrid sighed, “ Yes, I know you ; do your worst.” 

His head throbbed with the hearing of a heavy laugh, as 
if a hammer had knocked it. What ensued he knew not; 
he was left to his rest. He lay there many days and nights, 
that were marked by no change of light ; the lamp burned 
unwearyingly. Rinaldo and a woman tended him. The sign 
of his reviving strength was shown by a complaint he 
launched at the earthy smell of the place. 

“ It is like death,” said Rinaldo, coming to his side. “ I 
am used to it, and familiar with death too,” he added in a 
musical undertone. 

“ Are you also a prisoner here ? ” Wilfrid questioned him. 

“I am.” 

“ The brute does not kill, then ? ” 


308 


VITTORIA 


“No; he saves. I owe my life to him. He has rescued 
yours.” 

“ Mine ? ” said Wilfrid. 

“You would have been torn to pieces in the streets but 
for Barto Rizzo.” 

The streets were the world above to Wilfrid ; he was eager 
to hear of the doings in them. Rinaldo told him that the 
tobacco-war raged still ; the soldiery had recently received 
orders to smoke abroad, and street battles were hourly 
occurring. “They call this government!” he interjected. 

He was a soft-voiced youth ; slim and tall and dark, like 
Angelo, but with a more studious forehead. The book he 
was constantly reading was a book of chemistry. He enter- 
tained Wilfrid with very strange talk. He spoke of the 
stars and of a destiny. He cited certain minor events of his 
life to show the ground of his present belief in there being 
a written destiny for each individual man. “ Angelo and I 
know it well. It was revealed to us when we were boys. 
It has been certified to us up to this moment. Mark what I 
tell you,” he pursued in a devout sincerity of manner that 
baffled remonstrance, “ my days end with this new year. 
His end with the year following. Our house is dead.” 

Wilfrid pressed his hand. “ Have you not been too long 
underground ? ” 

“ That is the conviction I am coming to. But when I go 
out to breathe the air of heaven, I go to my fate. Should I 
hesitate ? We Italians of this period are children of thunder 
and live the life of a flash. The worms may creep on : the 
men must die. Out of us springs a better world. Romara, 
Ammiani, Mercadesco, Montesini, Rufo, Cardi, whether they 
see it or not, will sweep forward to it. To some of them, 
one additional day of breath is precious. Not so for Angelo 
and me. We are unbeloved. We have neither mother nor 
sister, nor betrothed. What is an existence that can fly to 
no human arms ? I have been too long underground, 
because, while I continue to hide, I am as a drawn sword 
between two lovers.” 

The previous mention of Ammiani’s name, together with 
the knowledge he had of Ammiani’s relationship to the 
Guidascarpi, pointed an instant identification of these 
lovers to Wilfrid. 


RINALDO GUIDASCARPI 


309 


He asked feverishly who they were, and looked his best 
simplicity, as one who was always interested by stories of 
lovers. 

The voice of Barto Rizzo, singing “Yittoria!” stopped 
Rinaldo’s reply: but Wilfrid read it in his smile at that 
word. He was too weak to restrain his anguish, and flung 
on the couch and sobbed. Rinaldo supposed that he was in 
fear of Barto, and encouraged him to meet the man confi- 
dently. A lusty “ Viva l’ltalia ! Yittoria ! ” heralded Barto’s 
entrance. “ My boy ! my noblest ! we have beaten them — 
the cravens ! Tell me now — haveT served an apprenticeship 
to the devil for nothing? We have struck the cigars out of 
their mouths and the monopoly-money out of their pockets. 
They have surrendered. The Imperial order prohibits 
soldiers from smoking in the streets of Milan, and so 
throughout Lombardy ! Soon we will have the prisons 
empty, by our own order. Trouble yourself no more about 
Ammiani. He shall come out to the sound of trumpets. I 
hear them! Hither, my Rosellina, my plump melon; up 
with your red lips, and buss me a Napoleon salute — 
ha ! ha ! ” 

Barto’s wife went into his huge arm, and submissively 
lifted her face. He kissed her like a barbaric king, laugh- 
ing as from wine. 

Wilfrid smothered his head from his incarnate thunder. 
He was unnoticed by Barto. Presently a silence told him 
that he was left to himself. An idea possessed him that the 
triumph of the Italians meant the release of Ammiani, and 
his release the loss of Yittoria for ever. Since her graceless 
return of his devotion to her in Meran, something like a 
passion — arising from the sole spring by which he could be 
excited to conceive a passion — had filled his heart. He was 
one of those who delight to dally with gentleness and faith, 
as with things that are their heritage; but the mere sus- 
picion of coquettry and indifference plunged him into a fury 
of jealous wrathfulness, and tossed so desireable an image of 
beauty before him that his mad thirst to embrace it seemed 
love. By our manner of loving we are known. He thought 
it no meanness to escape and cause a warning to be conveyed 
to the Government that there was another attempt brewing 
for the rescue of Count Ammiani. Acting forthwith on the 


310 


VITTOKIA 


hot impulse, he seized the lamp. The door was unlocked. 
Luckier than Luigi had been, he found a ladder outside, and 
a square opening through which he crawled ; continuing to 
ascend along close passages and up narrow flights of stairs, 
that appeared to him to be fashioned to avoid the rooms of 
thb house. At last he pushed a door, and found himself in 
an armoury, among stands of muskets, swords, bayonets, 
cartouche-boxes, and, most singular of all, though he ob- 
served them last, small brass pieces of cannon, shining with 
polish. Shot was piled in pyramids beneath their mouths. 
He examined the guns admiringly. There were rows of 
daggers along shelves ; some in sheath, others bare ; one 
that had been hastily wiped showed a smear of ropy blood. 
He stood debating whether he should seize a sword for his 
protection. In the act of trying its temper on the floor, the 
sword-hilt was knocked from his hand, and he felt a coil of 
arms around him. He was in the imprisoning embrace of 
Barto Rizzo’s wife. His first, and perhaps natural, impres- 
sion accused her of a violent display of an eccentric passion 
for his manly charms ; and the tighter she locked him, the 
more reasonably was he held to suppose it ; but as, while 
stamping on the floor, she offered nothing to his eyes save 
the yellow poll of her neck, and hung neither panting nor 
speaking, he became undeceived. His struggles were pre- 
posterous ; his lively sense of ridicule speedily stopped them. 
He remained passive, from time to time desperately adjuring 
his living prison to let him loose, or to conduct him whither 
he had come ; but the inexorable coil kept fast — how long 
there was no guessing — till he could have roared out tears 
of rage, and that is extremity for an Englishman. Rinaldo 
arrived in his aid ; but the woman still clung to him. He 
was freed only by the voice of Barto Rizzo, who marched 
him back. Rinaldo subsequently told him that his discovery 
of the armoury necessitated his confinement. 

“ Necessitates it ! ” cried Wilfrid. “ Is this your Italian 
gratitude ? ” 

The other answered : “ My friend, you risked your fortune 
for my brother; but this is a case that concerns our 
country.” 

He deemed these words to be an unquestionable justifica- 
tion, for he said no more. After this they ceased to converse. 


RINALDO GUIDASCARPI 


311 


Each, lay down on his strip of couch-matting ; rose and ate, 
and passed the dreadful untimed hours ; nor would Wilfrid 
ask whether it was day or night. We belong to time so 
utterly, that when we get no note of time, it wears the 
shrouded head of death for us already. Rinaldo could quit 
the place as he pleased ; he knew the hours ; and Wilfrid sup- 
posed that it must be hatred that kept him from voluntarily 
divulging that blessed piece of knowledge. He had to 
encourage a retorting spirit of hatred in order to mask his 
intense craving. By an assiduous calculation of seconds 
and minutes, he was enabled to judge that the lamp burned 
a space of six hours before it required replenishing. Barto 
Rizzo’s wife trimmed it regularly, but the accursed woman 
came at all seasons. She brought their meals irregularly, 
and she would never open her lips : she was like a guardian 
of the tombs. Wilfrid abandoned his dream of the variation 
of night and day, and with that the sense of life deadened, 
as the lamp did toward the sixth hour. Thenceforward 
his existence fed on the movements of his companion, the 
workings of whose mind he began to read with a marvellous 
insight. He knew once, long in advance of the act or an 
indication of it, that Rinaldo was bent on prayer. Rinaldo 
had slightly closed his eyelids during the perusal of his 
book; he had taken a pencil and traced lines on it from 
memory, and dotted points here and there ; he had left the 
room, and returned to resume his study. Then, after closing 
the book softly, he had taken up the mark he was accus- 
tomed to place in the last page of his reading, and tossed it 
away. Wilfrid was prepared to clap hands when he should 
see the hated fellow drop on his knees ; but when that sight 
verified his calculation, he huddled himself exultingly in his 
couch-cloth : — it was like a confirming clamour to him that 
he was yet wholly alive. He watched the anguish of the 
prayer, and was rewarded for the strain of his faculties by 
sleep. Barto Rizzo’s rough voice awakened him. Barto 
had evidently just communicated dismal tidings to Rinaldo, 
who left the vault with him, and was absent long enough to 
make Wilfrid forget his hatred in an irresistible desire to 
catch him by the arm and look in his face. 

“Ah! you have not forsaken me,” the greeting leaped 
out. 


312 


VITTORIA 


“Not now/’ said Einaldo. 

“ Do you think of going ? ” 

“ I will speak to you presently, my friend.” 

“ Hound ! ” cried Wilfrid, and turned his face to the wall. 

Until he slept, he heard the rapid travelling of a pen ; on 
his awakening, the pen vexed him like a chirping cricket 
that tells us that cock-crow is long ' distant when we are 
moaning for the dawn. Great drops of sweat were on 
Einaldo’s forehead. He wrote as one who poured forth a 
history without pause. Barto’s wife came to the lamp and 
beckoned him out, bearing the lamp away. There was now 
for the first time darkness in this vault. Wilfrid called 
Einaldo by name, and heard nothing but the fear of the 
place, which seemed to rise bristling at his voice and shrink 
from it. He called till dread of his voice held him dumb. 
“I am, then, a coward,” he thought. Nor could he by-and- 
by repress a start of terror on hearing Einaldo speak out .of 
the darkness. With screams for the lamp, and cries that 
he was suffering slow murder, he underwent a paroxysm in 
the effort to conceal his abject horror. Einaldo sat by his 
side patiently. At last, he said: “We are both of us pris- 
oners on equal terms now.” That was quieting intelligence 
to Wilfrid, who asked eagerly : “ What hour is it ? ” 

It was eleven of the forenoon. Wilfrid strove to dis- 
sociate his recollection of clear daylight from the pressure 
of the hideous featureless time surrounding him. He asked: 
“ What week ? ” It was the first week in March. Wilfrid 
could not keep from sobbing aloud. In the early period of 
such a captivity, imagination, deprived of all other food, 
conjures phantasms for the employment of the brain; but 
there is still some consciousness within the torpid intellect 
wakeful to laugh at them as they fly, though they have held 
us at their mercy. The face of time had been imaged like 
the withering mask of a corpse to him. He had felt, never- 
theless, that things had gone on as we trust them to do at 
the closing of our eyelids: he had preserved a mystical 
remote faith in the steady running of the world above, and 
hugged it as his most precious treasure. A thunder was 
rolled in his ears when he heard of the flight of two months 
at one bound. Two big months ! He would have guessed, 
at farthest, two weeks. “ I have been two months in one 


RINALDO GUIDASCARPI 


313 


shirt ? Impossible ! ” he exclaimed. His serious idea (he 
cherished it for the support of his reason) was, that the 
world above had played a mad prank since he had been 
shuffled off its stage. 

“ It can’t be March,” he said. “ Is there sunlight over- 
head ? ” 

“ It is a true Milanese March,” Einaldo replied. 

“ Why am I kept a prisoner ? ” 

“ 1 cannot say. There must be some idea of making use 
of you.” 

“ Have you arms ? ” 

“ I have none.” 

“ You know where they’re to be had.” 

“ I know, but I would not take them if I could. They, 
my friend, are for a better cause.” 

“ A thousand curses on your country ! ” cried Wilfrid. 
“ Give me air ; give me freedom ; I am stifled ; I am eaten 
up with dirt ; I am half dead. Are we never to have the 
lamp again ? ” 

“ Hear me speak,” Einaldo stopped his ravings. “ I will 
tell you what my position is. A second attempt has been 
made to help Count Ammiani’s escape ; it has failed. He is 
detained a prisoner by the Government under the pretence 
that he is implicated in the slaying of an Austrian noble by 
the hands of two brothers, one of whom slew him justly — 
not as a dog is slain, but according to every honourable 
stipulation of the code. I was the witness of the deed. It 
is for me that my cousin, Count Ammiani, droops in prison 
when he should be with his bride. Let me speak on, I pray 
you. I have said that I stand between two lovers. I can 
release him, I know well, by giving myself up to the Govern- 
ment. Unless I do so instantly, he will be removed from 
Milan to one of their fortresses in the interior, and there he 
may cry to the walls and iron-bars for his trial. They are 
aware that he is dear to Milan, and these two miserable 
attempts have furnished them with their excuse. Barto 
Eizzo bids me wait. I have waited : I can wait no longer. 
The lamp is withheld from me to stop my writing to my 
brother, that I may warn him of my design, but the letter is 
written ; the messenger is on his way to Lugano. I do not 
state my intentions before I have taken measures to accom- 


314 


VITTORIA 


plisli them. I am as much Barto Bizzo’s prisoner now as 
you are.” 

The plague of darkness and thirst for daylight prevented 
Wilfrid from having any other sentiment than gladness that 
a companion equally unfortunate with himself was here, and 
equally desirous to go forth. When Barto’s wife brought 
their meal, and the lamp to light them eating it, Binaldo 
handed her pen, ink, pencil, paper, all the material of cor- 
respondence ; upon which, as one who had received a 'stipu- 
lated exchange, she let the lamp remain. While the new 
and thrice-dear rays were illumining her dark-coloured solid 
beauty, I know not what touch of man-like envy or hurt 
vanity led Wilfrid to observe that the woman’s eyes dwelt 
with a singular fulness and softness on Binaldo. It was 
fulness and softness void of fire, a true ox-eyed gaze, but 
human in the fall of the eyelids ; almost such as an early 
poet of the brush gave to the Virgin carrying her Child, 
to become an everlasting reduplicated image of a mother’s 
strong beneficence of love. He called Binaldo’s attention 
to it when the woman had gone. Binaldo understood his 
meaning at once. 

“ It will have to be so, I fear,” he said ; “ I have thought 
of it. But if I lead her to disobey Barto, there is little 
hope for the poor soul.” He rose up straight, like one who 
would utter grace for meat. “ Must we, 0 my God, give a 
sacrifice at every step ? ” 

With that he resumed his seat stiffly, and bent and 
murmured to himself. Wilfrid had at one time of his 
life imagined that he was marked by a peculiar distinc- 
tion from the common herd ; but contact with this young 
man taught him to feel his fellowship to the world at large, 
and to rejoice at it, though it partially humbled him. 

They had no further visit from Barto Bizzo. The woman 
tended them in the same unswerving silence, and at whiles 
that adorable maternity of aspect. Wilfrid was touched 
by commiseration for her. He was too bitterly fretful on 
account of clean linen and the liberty which fluttered the 
prospect of it, to think much upon what her fate might be : 
perhaps a beating, perhaps the knife. But the vileness of 
wearing one shirt two months and more had hardened his 
heart ; and though he was considerate enough not to prompt 


RINALDO GUIDASCARPI 


315 


his companion very impatiently, he submitted desperate 
futile schemes to him, and suggested — “ To-night ? — to- 
morrow ? — the next day ? ” Einaldo did not heed him. 
He lay on his couch like one who bleeds inwardly, think- 
ing of the complacent faithfulness of that poor creature’s 
face. Barto Rizzo had sworn to him that there should be a 
rising in Milan before the month was out ; but he had lost all 
confidence in Milanese risings. Ammiani would be removed, 
if he delayed; and he knew that the moment his letter 
reached Lugano, Angelo would start for Milan and claim 
to surrender in his stead. The woman came, and went 
forth, and Einaldo did not look at her until his resolve 
was firm. 

He said to Wilfrid in her presence, “ Swear that you will 
reveal nothing of this house.” 

Wilfrid spiritedly pronounced his gladdest oath. 

“ It is dark in the streets,” Einaldo addressed the woman. 
“Lead us out, for the hour has come when I must go.” 

She clutched her hands below her bosom to stop its great 
heaving, and stood as one smitten by the sudden hearing of 
her sentence. The sight was pitiful, for her face scarcely 
changed ; the anguish was expressionless. Einaldo pointed 
sternly to the door. 

“Stay,” Wilfrid interposed. “That wretch may be in 
the house, and will kill her.” 

“ She is not thinking of herself,” said Einaldo. 

“But, stay,” Wilfrid repeated. The woman’s way of 
taking breath shocked and enfeebled him. 

Einaldo threw the door open. 

“ Must you ? must you ? ” her voice broke. 

“Waste no words.” 

“You have not seen a priest.” 

“I go to him.” 

“You die.” 

“ What is death to me ? Be dumb, that I may think well 
of you till my last moment.” 

“ What is death to me ? Be dumb ! ” 

She had spoken with her eyes fixed on his couch. It was 
the figure of one upon the scaffold, knitting her frame to 
hold up a strangled heart. 

“What is death to me? Be dumb!” she echoed him 


816 


VITTORIA 


many times on the rise and fall of her breathing, and 
turned to get him in her eyes. “ Be dumb ! be dumb ! ” 
She threw her arms wide out, and pressed his temples 
and kissed him. 

The scene was like hot iron to Wilfrid’s senses. When 
he heard her coolly asking him for his handkerchief to blind 
him, he had forgotten the purpose, and gave it mechanically. 
Nothing was uttered throughout the long mountings and 
descent of stairs. They passed across one corridor where 
the walls told of a humming assemblage of men within. A 
current of keen air was the first salute Wilfrid received from 
the world above ; his handkerchief was loosened ; he stood 
foolish as a blind man, weak as a hospital patient, on the 
steps leading into a small square of visible darkness* and 
heard the door shut behind him. Rinaldo led him from the 
court to the street. 

“ Farewell,” he said. “ Get some housing instantly ; 
avoid exposure to the air. I leave you.” 

Wilfrid spent his tongue in a fruitless and meaningless 
remonstrance. “ And you ? ” he had the grace to ask. 

“ I go straight to find a priest. Farewell.” 

So they parted. 


CHAPTER XXX 

EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR 
THE FIVE DAYS OF MILAN 

The same hand which brought Rinaldo’s letter to his 
brother delivered a message from Barto Rizzo, bidding 
Angelo to start at once and head a stout dozen or so of 
gallant Swiss. The letter and the message appeared to be 
grievous contradictions : one was evidently a note of despair, 
while the other sang like a trumpet. But both were of a 
character to draw him swiftly on to Milan. He sent word 
to his Lugano friends, naming a village among the mountains 
between Como and Varese, that they might join him there if 
they pleased. 


THE FIVE DAYS OF MILAN 


317 


Toward nightfall, on the nineteenth of the month, he stood 
with a small band of Ticinese and Italian fighting lads two 
miles distant from the city. There was a momentary break 
in long hours of rain ; the air was full of inexplicable sounds, 
that floated over them like a toning of multitudes wailing 
and singing fitfully behind a swaying screen. They bent 
their heads. At intervals a sovereign stamp on the pulsa- 
tion of the uproar said, distinct as a voice in the ear — Can- 
non. “ Milan’s alive ! ” Angelo cried, and they streamed 
forward under the hurry of stars and scud, till thumping 
guns and pattering musket-shots, the long big boom of 
surgent hosts, and the muffled voluming and crash of 
storm-bells, proclaimed that the insurrection was hot. A 
rout of peasants bearing immense ladders met them, and 
they joined with cheers, and rushed to the walls. As yet no 
gate was in the possession of the people. The walls showed 
bayonet-points : a thin edge of steel encircled a pit of fire. 
Angelo resolved to break through at once. The peasants 
hesitated, but his own men were of one mind to follow, and, 
planting his ladder in the ditch, he rushed up foremost. 
The ladder was full short; he called out in German to a 
soldier to reach his hand down, and the butt-end of a musket 
was dropped, which he grasped, and by this aid sprang to 
the parapet, and was seized. “ Stop,” he said, “ there’s a 
fellow below with my brandy-flask and portmanteau.” 
The soldiers were Italians ; they laughed, and hauled away 
at man after man of the mounting troop, calling alternately 
“ brandy-flask ! — portmanteau!” as each one raised a head 
above the parapet. “ The signor has a good supply of 
spirits and baggage,” they remarked. He gave them money 
for porterage, saying, “ You see, the gates are held by that 
infernal people, and a quiet traveller must come over the 
walls. Viva l’ltalia ! who follows me ? ” He carried away 
three of those present. The remainder swore that they and 
their comrades would be on his side on the morrow. Guided 
by the new accession to his force, Angelo gained the streets. 
All shots had ceased ; the streets were lighted with torches 
and hand-lamps ; barricades were up everywhere, like a con- 
vulsion of the earth. Tired of receiving challenges and 
mounting the endless piles of stones, he sat down at the head 
of the Corso di Porta Nuova, and took refreshments from the 


318 


VITTORIA 


hands of ladies. The house-doors were all open. The 
ladies came forth bearing wine and minestra, meat and 
bread, on trays ; and quiet eating and drinking, and fortify- 
ing of the barricades, went on. Men were rubbing their 
arms and trying rusty gun-locks. Few of them had not 
seen Barto Rizzo that day ; but Angelo could get no tidings 
of his brother. He slept on a door-step, dreaming that he 
was blown about among the angels of heaven and hell by a 
glorious tempest. Near morning an officer of volunteers 
came to inspect the barricade defences. Angelo knew him 
by sight ; it was Luciano Romara. He explained the posi- 
tion of the opposing forces. The Marshal, he said, was 
clearly no street-fighter. Estimating the army under his 
orders in Milan at from ten to eleven thousand men of all 
arms, it was impossible for him to guard the gates and the 
walls, and at the same time fight the city. Nor could he 
provision his troops. Yesterday the troops had made one 
charge and done mischief, but they had immediately retired. 
“ And if they take to cannonading us to-day, we shall know 
what that means,” Romara concluded. Angelo wanted to 
join him. “No, stay here,” said Romara. “I think you 
are a man who won’t give ground.” He had not seen either 
Rinaldo or Ammiani, but spoke of both as certain to be 
rescued. 

Rain and cannon filled the weary space of that day. 
Some of the barricades fronting the city gates had been 
battered down by nightfall ; they were restored within an 
hour. Their defenders entered the houses right and left 
during the cannonade, waiting to meet the charge ; but the 
Austrians held off. “ They have no plan,” Romara said on 
his second visit of inspection ; “ they are waiting on Fort- 
une, and starve meanwhile. We can beat them at that 
business.” 

Romara took Angelo and his Swiss away with him. The 
interior of the city was abandoned by the Imperialists, who 
held two or three of the principal buildings and the square 
of the Duomo. Clouds were driving thick across the cold- 
gleaming sky when the storm-bells burst out with the wild 
Jubilee-music of insurrection — a carol, a jangle of all dis- 
cord, savage as flame. Every church of the city lent its iron 
tongue to the peal ; and now they joined and now rolled 


THE FIVE DAYS OF MILAN 


819 


apart, now joined again and clanged like souls shrieking 
across the black gulfs of an earthquake ; they swam aloft 
with mournful delirium, tumbled together, were scattered 
in spray, dissolved, renewed, died, as a last worn wave casts 
itself on an unfooted shore, and rang again as through rent 
doorways, became a clamorous host, an iron body, a pressure 
as of a down-drawn firmament, and once more a hollow vast, 
as if the abysses of the Circles were sounded through and 
through. To the Milanese it was an intoxication; it was 
the howling of madness to the Austrians — a torment and a 
terror : they could neither sing, nor laugh, nor talk under it. 
Where they stood in the city, the troops could barely hear 
their officers’ call of command. No sooner had the bells 
broken out than the length of every street and Corso flashed 
with the tri-coloured flag ; musket-muzzles peeped from the 
windows ; men with great squares of pavement lined the 
roofs. Romara mounted a stiff barricade and beheld a scat- 
tered regiment running the gauntlet of storms of shot and 
missiles, in full retreat upon the citadel. On they came, offi- 
cers in front for the charge, as usual with the Austrians ; 
fire on both flanks, a furious mob at their heels, and the 
barricade before them. They rushed at Romara, and were 
hurled back, and stood in a riddled lump. Suddenly Romara 
knocked up the rifles of the couching Swiss ; he yelled to the 
houses to stop firing. “ Surrender your prisoners, — you 
shall pass,” he called. He had seen one dear head in the 
knot of the soldiery. No answer was given. Romara, with 
Angelo and his Swiss and the ranks of the barricade, poured 
over and pierced the streaming mass, steel for steel. 

“ Ammiani ! Ammiani ! ” Romara cried ; a roar from the 
other side, “ Barto ! Barto ! the Great Cat ! ” met the cry. 
The Austrians struck up a cheer under the iron derision of 
the bells ; it was ludicrous ; it was as if a door had slammed 
on their mouths, ringing tremendous echoes in a vaulted 
roof. They stood sweeping fire in two oblong lines ; a show 
of military array was preserved like a tattered robe, till 
Romara drove at their centre and left the retreat clear 
across the barricade. Then the whitecoats were seen flow- 
ing over, the motley surging hosts from the city in pursuit 
— foam of a storm-torrent hurled forward by the black 
tumult of precipitous waters. Angelo fell on his brother’s 


320 


VITTORIA 


neck; Romara clasped Carlo Ammiani. These two were 
being marched from the prison to the citadel when Barto 
Rizzo, who had prepared to storm the building, assailed 
the troops. To him mainly they were indebted for their 
rescue. 

Even in that ecstasy of meeting, the young men smiled at 
the preternatural transport on his features as he bounded by 
them, mad for slaughter, and mounting a small brass gun 
on the barricade, sent the charges of shot into the rear of 
the enemy. He kissed the black lip of his little thunderer 
in a rapture of passion ; called it his wife, his naked wife ; 
the best of mistresses, who spoke only when he charged her 
to speak ; raved that she was fair, and liked hugging ; that 
she was true, and the handsomest daughter of Italy ; that 
she would be the mother of big ones — none better than her- 
self, though they were mountains of sulphur big enough to 
make one gulp of an army. 

His wife in the flesh stood at his feet with a hand-grenade 
and a rifle, daggers and pistols in her belt. Her face was 
black with powder-smoke as the muzzle of the gun. She 
looked at Rinaldo once, and Rinaldo at her ; both dropped 
their eyes, for their joy at seeing one another alive was 
mighty. 

Dead Austrians were gathered in a heap. Dead and 
wounded Milanese were taken into the houses. Wine was 
brought forth by ladies and household women. An old 
crutched beggar, who had performed a deed of singular 
intrepidity in himself kindling a fire at the door of one of 
the principal buildings besieged by the people, and who 
showed perforated rags with a comical ejaculation of thanks 
to the Austrians for knowing how to hit a scarecrow and 
make a beggar holy, was the object of particular attention. 
Barto seated him on his gun, saying that his mistress and 
beauty was honoured ; ladies were proud in waiting on the 
fine frowzy old man. It chanced during that morning that 
Wilfrid Pierson had attached himself to Lieutenant Jenna’s 
regiment as a volunteer. He had no arms, nothing but a 
huge white umbrella, under which he walked dry in the 
heavy rain, and passed through the fire like an impassive 
spectator of queer events. Angelo’s Swiss had captured 
them, and the mob were maltreating them because they de- 


THE FIVE DAYS OF MILAN 


321 


dined to shout for this valorous ancient beggarman. “No 
doubt he’s a capital fellow/’ said Jenna; “but ‘Viva Scot- 
tocorni ’ is not my language ; ” and the spirited little subal- 
tern repeated his “ Excuse me ” with very good temper, while 
one knocked off his shako, another tugged at his coat-skirts. 
Wilfrid sang out to the Guidascarpi, and the brothers sprang 
to him and set them free ; but the mob, like any other wild 
beast gorged with blood, wanted play, and urged Barto to 
insist that these victims should shout the viva in exaltation 
of their hero. 

“ Is there a finer voice than mine ? ” said Barto, and he 
roared the ‘viva’ like a melodious bull. Yet Wilfrid saw 
that he had been recognized. In the hour of triumph Barto 
Rizzo had no lust for petty vengeance. The magnanimous 
devil plumped his gorge contentedly on victory. His ardour 
blazed from his swarthy crimson features like a blown fire, 
when scouts came running down with word that all about 
the Porta Camosina, Madonna del Carmine, and the Gar- 
dens, the Austrians were reaping the white flag of the in- 
habitants of that district. Thitherward his cry of “Down 
with the Tedeschi!” led the boiling tide. Rinaldo drew 
Wilfrid and J enna to an open doorway, counselling the lat- 
ter to strip the gold from his coat and speak his Italian 
in monosyllables. A woman of the house gave her promise 
to shelter and to pass them forward. Romara, Ammiani, 
and the Guidascarpi, went straight to the Casa Gonfalonieri, 
where they hoped to see stray members of the Council of 
War, and hear a correction of certain unpleasant rumours 
concerning the dealings of the Provisional Government with 
Charles Albert. 

The first crack of a division between the patriot force 
and the aristocracy commenced this day ; the day following 
it was a breach. 

A little before dusk the bells of the city ceased their 
hammering, and when they ceased, all noises of men and 
musketry seemed childish. The woman who had promised 
to lead Wilfrid and Jenna to the citadel, feared no longer 
either for herself or them, and passed them on up the Corso 
Francesco past the Contrada del Monte. Jenna pointed out 
the Duchess of Graatli’s house, saying, “By the way, the 
Lenkensteins are here; they left Venice last week. Of 


322 


VITTORIA 


course you know, or don’t you ? — and there they must stop, 
I suppose.” Wilfrid nodded an immediate good-bye to him, 
and crossed to the house-door. His eccentric fashion of act- 
ing had given him fame in the army, but Jenna stormed at 
it now, and begged him to come on and present himself to 
General Schoneck, if not to General Pierson. Wilfrid re- 
fused even to look behind him. In fact, it was a part of 
the gallant fellow’s coxcombry (or nationality) to play the 
Englishman. He remained fixed by the house-door till mid- 
night, when a body of men in the garb of citizens, volubly 
and violently Italian in their talk, struck thrice at the door. 
Wilfrid perceived Count Lenkenstein among them. The 
ladies Bianca, Anna, and Lena issued mantled and hooded 
between the lights of two barricade watchfires. Wilfrid 
stepped after them. They had the pass-word, for the barri- 
cades were crossed. The captain of the head-barricade in 
the Corso demurred, requiring a counter-sign. Straightway 
he was cut down. He blew an alarm-call, when up sprang 
a hundred torches. The band of Germans dashed at the 
barricade as at the tusks of a boar. They were picked men, 
most of them officers, but a scanty number in the thick of 
an armed populace. Wilfrid saw the lighted passage into 
the great house, and thither, throwing out his arms, he bore 
the affrighted group of ladies, as a careful shepherd might 
do. Returning to Count Lenkenstein’s side, “ Where are 
they ? ” the count said, in mortal dread. “ Safe,” Wilfrid 
replied. The count frowned at him inquisitively. “ Cut your 
way through, and on ! ” he cried to three or four who hung 
near him ; and these went to the slaughter. 

“Why do you stand by me, sir?” said the count. In- 
terior barricades were pouring their combatants to the spot ; 
Count Lenkenstein was plunged upon the door-steps. Wil- 
frid gained half-a-minute’s parley by shouting in his foreign 
accent, “ Would you hurt an Englishman ? ” Some one took 
him by the arm, and helping to raise the count, hurried 
them both into the house. 

“ You must make excuses for popular fury in times like 
these,” the stranger observed. 

The Austrian nobleman asked him stiffly for his name. 
The name of Count Ammiani was given. “I think you 
know it,” Carlo added. 


THE FIVE DAYS OF MILAN 


323 


“ You escaped from your lawful imprisonment this day, 
did you not ? — you and your cousin, the assassin. I talk of 
law ! I might as justly talk of honour. Who lives here ? ” 
Carlo contained himself to answer, “ The present occupant 
is, I believe, if I have hit the house I was seeking, the Coun- 
tess d’Isorella.” 

“ My family were placed here, sir ? ” Count Lenkenstein 
inquired of Wilfrid. But Wilfrid’s attention was frozen by 
the sight of Yittoria’s lover. A wifely call of “ Adalbert” 
from above quieted the count’s anxiety. 

“ Countess d’Isorella,” he said. “ I know that woman. 
She belongs to the secret cabinet of Carlo Alberto — a woman 
with three edges. Did she not visit you in prison two weeks 
ago ? I speak to you, Count Ammiani. She applied to the 
Archduke and the Marshal for permission to visit you. It 
was accorded. To the devil with our days of benignity ! 
She was from Turin. The shuffle has made her my hostess 
for the nonce. I will go to her. You, sir,” the count turned 
to Wilfrid — “ you will stay below. Are you in the pay of 
the insurgents ? ” 

Wilfrid, the weakest of human beings where women were 
involved with him, did one of the hardest things which can 
task a young man’s fortitude : he looked his superior in the 
face, and neither blenched, nor frowned, nor spoke. 

Ammiani spoke for him. “There is no pay given in our 
ranks.” 

“ The licence to rob is supposed to be an equivalent,” said 
the count. 

Countess d’Isorella herself came downstairs, with profuse 
apologies for the absence of all her male domestics, and 
many delicate dimples about her mouth in uttering them. 
Her look at Ammiani struck Wilfrid as having a peculiar 
burden either of meaning or of passion in it. The count 
grimaced angrily when he heard that his sister Lena was 
not yet able to bear the fatigue of a walk to the citadel. 
“ I fear you must all be my guests, for an hour at least,” 
said the countess. 

Wilfrid was left pacing the hall. He thought he had 
never beheld so splendid a person, or one so subjugatingly 
gracious. Her speech and manner poured oil on the uncivil 
Austrian nobleman. What perchance had stricken Lena ? 


324 


VITTORIA 


He guessed; and guessed it rightly. A folded scrap of 
paper signed by the Countess of Lenkenstein was brought 
to him. 

It said: — “Are you making common cause with the 
rebels ? Reply. One asks who should be told.” 

He wrote : — “ I am an outcast of the army. I fight as a 
volunteer with the K. K. troops. Could I abandon them in 
their peril ? ” 

The touch of sentiment he appended for Lena’s comfort. 
He was too strongly impressed by the new vision of beauty 
in the house for his imagination to be flushed by the romantic 
posture of his devotion to a trailing flag. 

No other message was delivered. Ammiani presently 
descended and obtained a guard from the barricade ; word 
was sent on to the barricades in advance toward the citadel. 
Wilfrid stood aside as Count Lenkenstein led the ladies to 
the door, bearing Lena on his arm. She passed her lover 
veiled. The count said, “ You follow.” He used the menial 
second person plural of German, and repeated it peremptorily. 

“ I follow no civilian,” said Wilfrid. 

“ Remember, sir, that if you are seen with arms in your 
hands, and are not in the ranks, you run the chances of 
being hanged.” 

Lena broke loose from her brother ; in spite of Anna’s 
sharp remonstrance and the count’s vexed stamp of the 
foot, she implored her lover : — “ Come with us ; pardon us ; 
protect me — me ! You shall not be treated harshly. They 

shall not Oh ! be near me. I have been ill ; I shrink 

from danger. Be near me ! ” 

Such humble pleading permitted Wilfrid’s sore spirit to 
succumb with the requisite show of chivalrous dignity. He 
bowed, and gravely opened his enormous umbrella, which he 
held up over the heads of the ladies, while Ammiani led the 
way. All was quiet near the citadel. A fog of plashing 
rain hung in red gloom about the many watch-fires of the 
insurgents, but the Austrian head-quarters lay sombre and 
still. Close at the gates, Ammiani saluted the ladies. 
Wilfrid did the same, and heard Lena’s call to him unmoved. 

“ May I dare to hint to you that it would be better for 
you to join your party? ” said Ammiani. 

Wilfrid walked on. After appearing to weigh the matter, 


THE FIVE DAYS OF MILAN 325 

he answered, “The umbrella will be of no further service 
to them to-night.” 

Ammiani laughed, and begged to be forgiven ; but he could 
have done nothing more flattering. 

Sore at all points, tricked and ruined, irascible under the 
sense of his injuries, hating everybody and not honouring 
himself, Wilfrid was fast growing to be an eccentric by 
profession. To appear cool and careless was the great 
effort of his mind. 

“We were introduced one day in the Piazza d’Armi,” 
said Ammiani. “I would have found means to convey my 
apologies to you for my behaviour on that occasion, but I 
have been at the mercy of my enemies. Lieutenant Pier- 
son, will you pardon me? I have learnt how dear you and 
your family should be to me. Pray, accept my excuses and 
my counsel. The Countess Lena was my friend when I was 
a boy. She is in deep distress.” 

“ I thank you, Count Ammiani, for your extremely dis- 
interested advice,” said Wilfrid; but the Italian was not 
cut to the quick by his irony; and he added: “I have 
hoisted, you perceive, the white umbrella instead of wear- 
ing the white coat. It is almost as good as an hotel in 
these times; it gives as much shelter and nearly as much 
provision, and, I may say, better attendance. Good-night. 
You will be at it again about daylight, I suppose?” 

“Possibly a little before,” said Ammiani, cooled by the 
false ring of this kind of speech. 

“It’s useless to expect that your infernal bells will not 
burst out like all the lunatics on earth?” 

“Quite useless, I fear. Good-night.” 

Ammiani charged one of the men at an outer barricade to 
follow the white umbrella and pass it on. 

He returned to the Countess d’Isorella, who was awaiting 
him, and alone. 

This glorious head had aroused his first boyish passion. 
Scandal was busy concerning the two, when Violetta 
d’Asola, the youthfullest widow in Lombardy and the 
loveliest woman, gave her hand to Count d’Isorella, who 
took it without question of the boy Ammiani. Carlo’s 
mother assisted in that arrangement; a maternal plot, for 
which he could thank her only after he had seen Vittoria, 


326 


YITTORIA 


and then had heard the buzz of whispers at Violetta’s name. 
Countess d’Isorella proved her friendship to have survived 
the old passion, by travelling expressly from Turin to 
obtain leave to visit him in prison. It was a marvellous 
face to look upon between prison walls. Rescued while the 
soldiers were marching him to the citadel that day, he was 
called by pure duty to pay his respects to the countess as 
soon as he had heard from his mother that she was in the 
city. Nor was his mother sorry that he should go. She 
had patiently submitted to the fact of his betrothal to 
Vittoria, which was his safeguard in similar perils; and 
she rather hoped for Violetta to wean him from his extreme 
republicanism. By arguments? By influence, perhaps. 
Carlo’s republicanism was preternatural in her sight, and 
she presumed that Violetta would talk to him discreetly 
and persuasively of the noble designs of the king. 

Violetta d’Isorella received him with a gracious lifting 
of her fingers to his lips ; congratulating him on his escape, 
and on the good fortune of the day. She laughed at the 
Lenkensteins and the singular Englishman; sat down to a 
little supper-tray, and pouted humorously as she asked him 
to feed on confects and wine; the huge appetites of the 
insurgents had devoured all her meat and bread. 

“Why are you here?” he said. 

She did well in replying boldly, “For the king.” 

“Would you tell another that it is for the king?” 

“Would I speak to another as I speak to you?” 

Ammiani inclined his head. 

They spoke of the prospects of the insurrection, of the 
expected outbreak in Venice, the eruption of Paris and 
Vienna, and the new life of Italy; touching on Carlo 
Alberto to explode the truce in a laughing dissension. At 
last she said seriously, “I am a born Venetian* you know; 
I am not Piedmontese. Let me be sure that the king 
betrays the country, and I will prefer many heads to one. 
Excuse me if I am more womanly just at present. The 
king has sent his accredited messenger Tartini to the Pro- 
visional Government, requesting it to accept his authority. 
Why not? why not? on both sides. Count Medole gives 
his adhesion to the king, but you have a Council of War 
that rejects the king’s overtures — a revolt within a revolt. 


THE FIVE DAYS OF MILAN 


327 


It is deplorable. You must have an army. The Pied- 
montese once over the Ticino, how can you act in opposi- 
tion to it? You must learn to take a master. The king 
is only, or he appears, tricksy because you compel him to 
wind and counterplot. I swear to you, Italy is his foremost 
thought. The Star of Italy sits on the Cross of Savoy.” 

Ammiani kept his eyelids modestly down. “ Ten thou- 
sand to plead for him, such as you! ” he said. “But there 
is only one ! ” 

“If you had been headstrong once upon a time, and I had 
been weak, you see, my Carlo, you would have been a do- 
mestic tyrant, I a rebel. You will not admit the existence 
of a virtue in an opposite opinion. Wise was your mother 
when she said ‘No ’ to a wilful boy! ” 

Violetta lit her cigarette and puffed the smoke lightly. 

“ I told you in that horrid dungeon, my Carlo Amaranto 
— I call you by the old name — the old name is sweet ! — I 
told you that your Vittoria is enamoured of the king. She 
blushes like a battle-flag for the king. I have heard her 
‘Viva il Be ! 9 It was musical.” 

“So I should have thought.” 

“Ay, but my amaranto-innamorato, does it not foretell 
strife? Would you ever — ever take a heart with a king’s 
head stamped on it into your arms?” 

“ Give me the chance ! ” 

He was guilty of this ardent piece of innocence though 
Violetta had pitched her voice in the key significant of a 
secret thing belonging to two memories that had not always 
flowed dividedly. 

“Like a common coin?” she resumed. 

“ A heart with a king's head stamped, on it like a common 
coin.” 

He recollected the sentence. He had once, during the 
heat of his grief for Giacomo Piaveni, cast it in her teeth. 

Violetta repeated it, as to herself, tonelessly; a method 
of making an old unkindness strike back on its author with 
effect. 

“Did we part good friends? I forget,” she broke the 
silence. 

“We meet, and we will be the best of friends,” said 
Ammiani. 


328 


VITTORIA 


“ Tell your mother I am not three years older than her 
son, — I am thirty. Who will make me young again? 
Tell her, my Carlo, that the genius for intrigue, of which 
she accuses me, ^develops at a surprising rate. As regards 

my beauty ” the countess put a tooth of pearl on her 

soft underlip. 

Ammiani assured her that he would find words of his own 
for her beauty. 

“I hear the eulogy, I know the sonnet,” said Violetta, 
smiling, and described the points of a brunette : the thick 
black banded hair, the full brown eyes, the plastic brows 
couching over them ; — it was Vittoria’s face. Violetta was 
a flower of colour, fair, with but one shade of dark tinting 
on her brown eye-brows and eye-lashes, as you may see a 
strip of night-cloud cross the forehead of morning. She 
was yellow-haired, almost purple-eyed, so rich was the blue 
of the pupils. Vittoria could be sallow in despondency; 
but this Violetta never failed in plumpness and freshness. 
The pencil which had given her aspect the one touch of 
discord, endowed it with a subtle harmony, like mystery; 
and Ammiani remembered his having stood once on the 
Lido of Venice, and eyed the dawn across the Adriatic, and 
dreamed that Violetta was born of the loveliness and held 
in her bosom the hopes of morning. He dreamed of it 
now, feeling the smooth roll of a torrent. 

A cry of “Arms!” rang down the length of the Corso. 

He started to his feet thankfully. 

“Take me to your mother,” she said. “I loathe to hear 
firing and be alone.” 

Ammiani threw up the window. There was a stir of 
lamps and torches below, and the low sky hung red. Vio- 
letta stood quickly thick-shod and hooded. 

“Your mother will admit my companionship, Carlo?” 

“She desires to thank you.” 

“ She has no longer any fear of me? ” 

“ You will find her of one mind with you.” 

“Concerning the king! ” 

“I would say, on most subjects.” 

“But that you do not know my mind! You are modest. 
Confess that you are thinking the hour you have passed 
with me has been wasted.” 


THE FIVE DAYS OF MILAN 


329 


“l am, now I hear the call to arms.” 

“ If I had all the while entertained you with talk of your 
Yittoria! It would not have been wasted then, my ama- 
ranto. It is not wasted for me. If a shot should strike 
you ” 

“ Tell her I died loving her with all my soul ! ” cried 
Ammiani. 

Violetta’s frame quivered as if he had smitten her. 

They left the house. Countess Ammiani’s door was the 
length of a barricade distant : it swung open to them, like 
all the other house-doors which were, or wished to be 
esteemed, true to the cause, and hospitable toward patriots. 

“Bemember, when you need a refuge, my villa is on 
Lago Maggiore,” Violetta said, and kissed her finger-tips 
to him. 

An hour after, by the light of this unlucky little speech, 
he thought of her as a shameless coquette. “ When I need 
a refuge? Is not Milan in arms? — Italy alive? She con- 
siders it all a passing epidemic; or, perhaps, she is to plead 
for me to the king! ” 

That set him thinking moodily over the things she had 
uttered of Vittoria’s strange and sudden devotion to the 
king. 

Bainy dawn and the tongues of the churches ushered in 
the last day of street fighting. Ammiani found Bomara 
and Colonel Corte at the head of strong bodies of volun- 
teers, well-armed, ready to march for the Porta Tosa. All 
three went straight to the house where the Provisional 
Government sat, and sword in hand denounced Count 
Medole as a traitor who sold his country to the king. 
Corte dragged him to the window to hear the shouts for the 
Bepublic. Medole wrote their names down one by one, and 
said, “Shall I leave the date vacant?” They put them- 
selves at the head of their men, and marched in the ringing 
of the bells. The bells were their sacro-military music. 
Barto Bizzo was off to make a spring at the Porta Ticinese. 
Students, peasants, noble youths of the best blood, old men 
and young women, stood ranged in the drenching rain, eager 
to face death for freedom. At mid-day the bells were 
answered by cannon and the blunt snap of musketry volleys ; 
dull, savage responses, as of a wounded great beast giving 


330 


VITTORIA 


short howls and snarls by the interminable over-roaring of 
a cataract. Messengers from the gates came running to the 
quiet centre of the city, where cool men discoursed and 
plotted. Great news, big lies, were shouted: — Carlo 
Alberto thundered in the plains ; the Austrians were every- 
where retiring ; the Marshal was a prisoner ; the flag of sur- 
render was on the citadel! These things were for the ears 
of thirsty women, diplomatists, and cripples. 

Countess Ammiani and Countess d’Isorella sat together 
throughout the agitation of the day. 

The life prayed for by one seemed a wisp of straw flung 
on this humming furnace. 

Countess Ammiani was too well used to defeat to believe 
readily in victory, and had shrouded her head in resigna- 
tion too long to hope for what she craved. Her hands 
were joined softly in her lap. Her visage had the same 
unmoved expression when she conversed with Violetta as 
when she listened to the ravings of the Corso. 

Darkness came, and the bells ceased not rolling by 
her open windows: the clouds were like mists of confla- 
gration. 

She would not have the windows closed. The noise of 
the city had become familiar and akin to the image of her 
boy. She sat there cloaked. 

Her heart went like a time-piece to the two interrogations 
to heaven : “ Alive? — or dead? ” 

The voice of Luciano Romara was that of an angel’s an- 
swering. He entered the room neat and trim as a cavalier 
dressed for social evening duty, saying with his fine tact, 
a We are all well; ” and after talking like a gazette of the 
Porta Tosa taken by the volunteers, Barto Rizzo’s occupa- 
tion of the gate opening on the Ticino, and the bursting of 
the Porta Camosina by the freehands of the plains, he 
handed a letter to Countess Ammiani. 

“ Carlo is on the march to Bergamo and Brescia, with 
Corte, Sana, and about fifty of our men,” he said. 

“And is wounded — where?” asked Violetta. 

“Slightly in the hand — you see, he can march,” Romara 
said, laughing at her promptness to suspect a subterfuge, 
until he thought, “Now, what does this mean, madam?” 

A lamp was brought to Countess Ammiani. She read : — 


THE FIVE DAYS OF MILAN 


331 


“My Mother! 

“ Cotton-wool on the left fore-finger. They deigned to 
give me no other memorial of my first fight. I am not 
worthy of papa’s two bullets. I march with Corte and 
Sana to Brescia. We keep the passes of the Tyrol. Lu- 
ciano heads five hundred up to the hills to-morrow or next 
day. He must have all our money. Then go from door to 
door and beg subscriptions. Yes, my Chief! it is to be 
like God, and deserving of his gifts to lay down all pride, 
all wealth. This night send to my betrothed in Turin. 
She must be with no one but my mother. It is my com- 
mand. Tell her so. I hold imperatively to it. 

“ I breathe the best air of life. Luciano is a fine leader 
in action, calm as in a ball-room. What did I feel? I 
will talk of it with you by-and-by; — my father whispered 
in my ears; I felt him at my right hand. He said, ‘I died 
for this day.’ I feel now that I must have seen him. This 
is imagination. We may say that anything is imagination. 
I certainly heard his voice. Be of good heart, my mother, 
for I can swear that the General wakes up when I strike 
Austrian steel. He loved Brescia; so I go there. God pre- 
serve my mother! The eyes of heaven are wide enough to 
see us both. Yittoria by your side, remember! It is my 
will. 


“Carlo.” 


Countess Ammiani closed her eyes over the letter, as in 
a dead sleep. “ He is more his father than himself, and so 
suddenly!” she said. She was tearless. Violetta helped 
her to her bed-room under the pretext of a desire to hear 
the contents of the letter. 

That night, which ended the five days of battle in Milan, 
while fires were raging at many gates, bells were rolling 
over the roof-tops, the army of Austria coiled along the 
North-eastern walls of the city, through rain and thick 
obscurity, and wove its way like a vast worm into the outer 
land. 


332 


VITTORIA 


CHAPTER XXXI 

EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR 
VITTORIA DISOBEYS HER LOVER 

Countess d’Isorella’s peculiar mission to Milan was 
over with the victory of the city. She undertook personally 
to deliver Carlo’s injunction to Yittoria on her way to the 
king. Countess Ammiani deemed it sufficient that her 
son’s wishes should be repeated verbally; and as there 
appeared to be no better messenger than one who was bound 
for Turin and knew Yittoria’s place of residence, she en- 
trusted the duty to Yioletta. 

The much which hangs on little was then set in motion. 

Yioletta was crossing the Ticino when she met a Milanese 
nobleman who had received cold greeting from the king, 
and was returning to Milan with word that ' the Pied- 
montese declaration of war against Austria had been signed. 
She went back to Milan, saw and heard, and gathered a 
burden for the royal ears. This was a woman, tender only 
to the recollection of past days, who used her beauty and 
her arts as weapons for influence. She liked kings because 
she saw neither master nor dupe in a republic; she liked 
her early lover because she could see nothing but a victim 
in any new one. She was fond of Carlo, as greatly occupied 
minds may be attached to an old garden where they have 
aforetime sown fair seed. Jealousy of a rival in love 
that was disconnected with political business and her 
large expenditure, had never yet disturbed the lady’s 
nerves. 

At Turin she found Yittoria singing at the opera, and 
winning marked applause from the royal box. She thought 
sincerely that to tear a prima donna from her glory would 
be very much like dismissing a successful General to his 
home and gabbling family. A most eminent personage 
agreed with her. Yittoria was carelessly informed that 
Count Ammiani had gone to Brescia, and having regard 
for her safety, desired her to go to Milan to be under the 


YITTORIA DISOBEYS HER LOVER 


333 


protection of his mother, and that Countess Ammiani was 
willing to receive her. 

Now, with her mother, and her maid Giacinta, and Beppo 
gathered about her, for three weeks Yittoria had been in 
full operatic career, working, winning fame, believing that 
she was winning influence, and establishing a treasury. 
The presence of her lover in Milan would have called her to 
the noble city ; but he being at Brescia, she asked herself 
why she should abstain from labours which contributed 
materially to the strength of the revolution and made her 
helpful. It was doubtful whether Countess Ammiani would 
permit her to sing at La Scala; or whether the city could 
support an opera in the throes of war. And Vittoria was 
sending money to Milan. The stipend paid to her by the 
impresario, the jewels, the big bouquets — all flowed into 
the treasury of the insurrection. Antonio-Pericles advanced 
her a large sum on the day when the news of the Milanese 
uprising reached Turin: the conditions of the loan had 
simply been that she should continue her engagement to 
sing in Turin. He was perfectly slavish to her, and might 
be trusted to advance more. Since the great night at La 
Scala, she had been often depressed by a secret feeling that 
there was divorce between her love of her country and 
devotion to her Art. Now that both passions were in 
union, both active, each aiding the fire of the other, she 
lived a consummate life. She could not have abandoned 
her path' instantly though Carlo had spoken his command 
to her in person. Such were her first spontaneous reason- 
ings, and Laura Piaveni seconded them ; saying, “ Money, 
money! we must be Jews for money. We women are not 
allowed to fight, but we can manage to contribute our lire 
and soldi; we can forge the sinews of war.” 

Yittoria wrote respectfully to Countess Ammiani stating 
why she declined to leave Turin. The letter was poorly 
worded. While writing it she had been taken by a senti- 
ment of guilt and of isolation in presuming to disobey her 
lover. “ I am glad he will not see it,” she remarked to 
Laura, who looked rapidly across the lines, and said noth- 
ing. Praise of the king was in the last sentence. Laura’s 
eyes lingered on it half-a-minute. 

“Has he not drawn his sword? He is going to march,” 
said Yittoria. 


334 


VITTORIA 


“Oh, yes,” Laura replied coolly ; “but you put that to 
please Countess Ammiani.” 

Vittoria confessed she had not written it purposely to 
defend the king. “What harm?” she asked. 

“None. Only this playing with shades allows men to 
call us hypocrites.” 

The observation angered Vittoria. She had seen the 
king of late ; she had breathed Turin incense and its atmos- 
phere; much that could be pleaded on the king’s behalf she 
had listened to with the sympathetic pity which can be a 
woman’s best judgement, and is the sentiment of reason. 
She had also brooded over the king’s character, and had 
thought that if the Chief could have her opportunities for 
studying this little impressible, yet strangely impulsive 
royal nature, his severe condemnation of him would be 
tempered. In fact, she was doing what makes a woman 
excessively tender and opinionated; she was petting her 
idea of the misunderstood one : she was thinking that she 
divined the king’s character by mystical intuition; I will 
dare to say, maternally apprehended it. And it was a 
character strangely open to feminine perceptions, while to 
masculine comprehension it remained a dead blank, done 
either in black or in white. 

Vittoria insisted on praising the king to Laura. 

“With all my heart,” Laura said, “so long as he is true 
to Italy.” 

“How, then, am I hypocritical?” 

“ My Sandra, you are certainly perverse. You admitted 
that you did something for the sake of pleasing Countess 
Ammiani.” 

“I did. But to be hypocritical one must be false.” 

“Oh!” went Laura. 

“ And I write to Carlo. He does not care for the king ; 
therefore it is needless for me to name the king to him ; 
and I shall not.” 

Laura said, “Very well.” She saw a little deeper than 
the perversity, though she did not see the springs. In 
Vittoria’s letter to her lover, she made no allusion to the 
Sword of Italy. 

Countess Ammiani forwarded both letters on to Brescia. 

When Carlo had finished reading them, he heard all 


VITTORIA DISOBEYS HER LOVER 


335 


Brescia clamouring indignantly at the king for having dis- 
armed volunteers on Lago Maggiore and elsewhere in his 
dominions. Milan was sending word by every post of the 
overbearing arrogance of the Piedmontese officers and 
officials, who claimed a prostrate submission from a city 
fresh with the ardour of the glory it had won for itself, 
and that would fain have welcomed them as brothers. 
Honiara and others wrote of downright visible betrayal. It 
was a time of passions: — great readiness for generosity, 
equal promptitude for undiscriminating hatred. Carlo 
read Vittoria’s praise of the king with insufferable anguish. 
“You — you part of me, can write like this!” he struck 
the paper vehemently. The fury of action transformed 
the gentle youth. Countess Ammiani would not have 
forwarded the letter addressed to herself had she dreamed 
the mischief it might do. Carlo saw double-dealing in 
the absence of any mention of the king in his own letter. 

“Quit Turin at once,” he dashed hasty lines to Vittoria; 
“ and no ‘ Viva il Be ’ till we know what he may merit. Old 
delusions are pardonable; but you must now look abroad 
with your eyes. Your words should be the echoes of my 
soul. Your acts are mine. For the sake of the country, do 
nothing to fill me with shame. The king is a traitor. I 
remember things said of him by Agostino ; I subscribe to 
them every one. Were you like any other Italian girl, you 
might cry for him — who would care ! But you are Vittoria. 
Fly to my mother’s arms, and there rest. The king betrays 
us. Is a stronger word necessary ? I am writing too harshly 
to you; — and here are the lines of your beloved letter 
throbbing round me while I write ; but till the last shot 
is fired I try to be iron, and would hold your hand and not 
kiss it — not be mad to fall between your arms — not wish 
for you — not think of you as a woman, as my beloved, as 
my Vittoria ; I hope and pray not, if I thought there was 
an ace of work left to do for the country. Or if one could 
say that you cherished a shred of loyalty for him who 
betrays it. Great heaven ! am I to imagine that royal 

flatteries My hand is not my own! You shall see 

all that it writes. I will seem to you no better than I am. 
I do not tell you to be a Bepublican, but an Italian. If I 
had room for myself in my prayers — oh ! one half-instant 


836 


VITTOHIA 


to look on you, though with chains on my limbs. The sky 
and the solid ground break up when I think of you. I fancy 
I am still in prison. Angelo was music to me for two whole 
days (without a morning to the first and a night to the 
second). He will be here to-morrow and talk of you again. 
I long for him more than for battle — almost long for you 
more than for victory for our Italy. 

“ This is Brescia, which my father said he loved better 
than his wife. 

“ General Paolo Ammiani is buried here. I was at his 
tombstone this morning. I wish you had known him. 

“ You remember, we talked of his fencing with me daily. 
‘ I love the fathers who do that.’ You said it. He will love 
you. Death is the shadow — not life. I went to his tomb. 
It was more to think of Brescia than of him. Ashes are 
only ashes ; tombs are poor places. My soul is the power. 

“ If I saw the Monte Yiso this morning, I saw right over 
your head when you were sleeping. 

“ Farewell to journalism — I hope, for ever. I jump at 
shaking off the journalistic phraseology Agostino laughs at. 
Yet I was right in printing my ‘ young nonsense.’ I did 
hold the truth, and that was felt, though my vehicle for 
delivering it was rubbish. 

“ In two days Corte promises to sing his song, 1 Avanti.’ 
I am at his left hand. Venice, the passes of the Adige, the 
Adda, the Oglio are ours. The room is locked; we have 
only to exterminate the reptiles inside it. Honiara, D’Arci, 
Carnischi march to hold the doors. Corte will push lower ; 
and if I can get him to enter the plains and join the main 
army I shall rejoice.” 

The letter concluded with a postscript that half an Italian 
regiment, with white coats swinging on their bayonet-points, 
had just come in. 

It reached Vittoria at a critical moment. 

Two days previously, she and Laura Piaveni had talked 
with the king. It was an unexpected honour. Countess 
d’Isorella conducted them to the palace. The lean-headed 
sovereign sat booted and spurred, his sword across his knees ; 
he spoke with a peculiar sad hopefulness of the prospects of 
the campaign, making it clear that he was risking more than 
anyone risked, for his stake was a crown. The few words 


YITTORIA DISOBEYS HEB, LOVER 


337 


he uttered of Italy had a golden ring in them; Yittoria 
knew not why they had it. He condemned the Republican 
spirit of Milan more regretfully than severely. The Repub- 
licans were, he said, impracticable. Beyond the desire for 
change, they knew not what they wanted. He did not state 
that he should avoid Milan in his march. On the contrary, 
he seemed to indicate that he was about to present himself 
to the people of Milan. “To act against the enemy suc- 
cessfully, we must act as one, under one head, with one 
aim.” He said this, adding that no heart in Italy had 
yearned more than his own for the signal to march for the 
Mincio and the Adige. 

Yittoria determined to put him to one test. She sum- 
moned her boldness to crave grace for Agostino Balderini 
to return to Piedmont. The petition was immediately 
granted. Alluding to the libretto of Camilla , the king 
complimented Yittoria for her high courage on the night of 
the Fifteenth of the foregoing year. “We in Turin were 
prepared, though we had only then the pleasure of hearing 
of you,” he said. 

“ I strove to do my best to help. I wish to serve our cause 
now,” she replied, feeling an inexplicable new sweetness 
running in her blood. 

He asked her if she did not know that she had the power 
to move multitudes. 

“Sire, singing appears so poor a thing in time of war.” 

He remarked that wine was good for soldiers, singing 
better, such a voice as hers best of all. 

For hours after the interview, Yittoria struggled with 
her deep blushes. She heard the drums of the regiments, 
the clatter of horses, the bugle-call of assembly, as so many 
confirmatory notes that it was a royal hero who was going 
forth. 

“He stakes a crown,” she said to Laura. 

“ Tush ! it tumbles off his head if he refuses to venture 
something,” was Laura’s response. 

Yittoria reproached her for injustice. 

“No,” Laura said; “he is like a young man for whom 
his mother has made a match. And he would be very much 
in love with his bride if he were quite certain of winning 
her, or rather, if she would come a little more than half- 


338 


VITTORIA 


way to meet him. Some young men are so composed. 
Genoa and Turin say, ‘Go and try.’ Milan and Venice say, 
‘Come and have faith in us.’ My opinion is that he is quite 
as much propelled as attracted / 5 

“This is shameful , 55 said Vittoria. 

“No; for I am quite willing to suspend my judgement. 
I pray that fortune may bless his arms. I do think that 
the stir of a campaign, and a certain amount of success will 
make him in earnest . 55 

“Can you look on his face and not see pure enthusiasm ? 55 

“I see every feminine quality in it, my dear . 55 

“What can it be that he is wanting in ? 55 

“Masculine ambition . 55 

“I am not defending him , 55 said Vittoria hastily. 

“Not at all; and I am not attacking him. I can excuse 
his dread of Republicanism. I can fancy that there is 
reason for him just now to fear Republicanism worse than 
Austria. Paris and Milan are two grisly phantoms before 
him. These red spectres are born of earthquake, and are 
more given to shaking thrones than are hostile cannon-shot. 
Earthquakes are dreadfuller than common maladies to all 
of us. Fortune may help him, but he has not the look of 
one who commands her. The face is not aquiline. There’s 
a light over him like the ray of a sickly star . 55 

“ For that reason ! 55 Vittoria burst out. 

“ Oh, for that reason we pity men, assuredly, my Sandra, 
but not kings. Luckless kings are not generous men, and 
ungenerous men are mischievous kings . 55 

“ But if you find him chivalrous and devoted ; if he proves 
his noble intentions, why not support him ? 55 

“Dandle a puppet, by all means , 55 said Laura. 

Her intellect, not her heart, was harsh to the king; and 
her heart was not mistress of her intellect in this respect, 
because she beheld riding forth at the head of Italy one 
whose spirit was too much after the pattern of her supple, 
springing, cowering, impressionable sex, alternately ardent 
and abject, chivalrous and treacherous, and not to be con- 
fided in firmly when standing at the head of a great cause. 

Aware that she was reading him very strictly by the let- 
ters of his past deeds, which were not plain history to Vit- 
toria, she declared that she did not countenance suspicion 


YITTORIA DISOBEYS HER LOVER 


339 


in dealing with the king, and that it would be a delight to 
her to hear of his gallant bearing on the battle-field. “ Or 
to witness it, my Sandra, if that were possible; — we two! 
Tor, should he prove to be no General, he has the courage 
of his family. ” 

Yittoria took fire at this. “ What hinders our following 
the army?” 

“The less baggage the better, my dear.” 

“ But the king said that my singing I have no right 

to think it myself.” Vittoria concluded her sentence with 
a comical intention of humility. 

“ It was a pretty compliment,” said Laura. “You replied 
that singing is a poor thing in time of war, and I agree with 
you. We might serve as hospital nurses.” 

“Why do we not determine?” 

“We are only considering possibilities.” 

“Consider the impossibility of our remaining quiet.” 

“Fire that goes to flame is a waste of heat, my Sandra.” 

The signora, however, was not so discreet as her speech. 
On all sides there was uproar and movement. High-born 
Italian ladies were offering their hands for any serviceable 
work. Laura and Yittoria were not alone in the desire 
which was growing to be resolution to share the hardships 
of the soldiers, to cherish and encourage them, and by see- 
ing, to have the supreme joy of feeling the blows struck at 
the common enemy. 

The opera closed when the king marched. Carlo Am- 
miani’s letter was handed to Yittoria at the fall of the 
curtain on the last night. 

Three paths were open to her: either that she should 
obey her lover, or earn an immense sum of money from 
Antonio-Pericles by accepting an immediate engagement in 
London, or go to the war. To sit in submissive obedience 
seemed unreasonable; to fly from Italy impossible. Yet 
the latter alternative appealed strongly to her sense of 
duty, and as it thereby threw her lover’s commands into 
the background, she left it to her heart to struggle with 
Carlo, and thought over the two final propositions. The 
idea of being apart from Italy while the living country 
streamed forth to battle struck her inflamed spirit like the 
shock of a pause in martial music. Laura pretended to 


340 


VITTORIA 


take no part in Vittoria’s decision, but when it was reached, 
she showed her a travelling-carriage stocked with lint and 
linen, wine in jars, chocolate, cases of brandy, tea, coffee, 
needles, thread, twine, scissors, knives; saying, as she dis- 
played them, “ there, my dear, all my money has gone in 
that equipment, so you must pay on the road.” 

“This doesn’t leave me a choice, then,” said Vittoria, 
joining her humour. 

“Ah, but think over it,” Laura suggested. 

“No! not think at all,” cried Vittoria. 

“You do not fear Carlo’s anger?” 

“If I think, I am weak as water. Let us go.” 

Countess d’Isorella wrote to Carlo: “Your Vittoria is 
away after the king to Pavia. They tell me she stood up 
in her carriage on the Ponte del Po — ‘Viva il Re d’ltalia! ’ 
— waving the cross of Savoy. As I have previously assured 
you, no woman is Republican. The demonstration was a 
mistake. Public characters should not let their personal 
preferences be trumpeted : a diplomatic truism : — but I must 
add, least of all a cantatrice for a king. The famous Greek 
amateur — the prop of failing finances — is after her to 
arrest her for breach of engagement. You wished to dis- 
cover an independent mind in a woman, my Carlo; did you 
not? One would suppose her your wife — or widow. She 
looked a superb thing the last night she sang. She is not, 
in my opinion, wanting in height. If, behind all that inno- 
cence and candour, she has any trained artfulness, she will 
beat us all. Heaven bless your arms! ” 

The demonstration mentioned by the countess had not 
occurred. 

Vittoria’s letter to her lover missed him. She wrote 
from Pavia, after she had taken her decisive step. 

Carlo Ammiani went into the business of the war with 
the belief that his betrothed had despised his prayer to her. 

He was under Colonel Corte, operating on the sub- Alpine 
range of hills along the line of the Chiese South-eastward. 
Here the volunteers, formed of the best blood of Milan, the 
gay and brave young men, after marching in the pride of 
their strength to hold the Alpine passes and bar Austria 
from Italy while the fight went on below, were struck by a 
sudden paralysis. They hung aloft there like an arm cleft 


VITTORIA DISOBEYS HER LOVER 


341 


from the body. Weapons, clothes, provisions, money, the 
implements of war, were withheld from them. The Pied- 
montese officers despatched to watch their proceedings 
laughed at them like exasperating senior scholars examin- 
ing the accomplishments of a lower form. It was manifest 
that Count Medole and the Government of Milan worked 
everywhere to conquer the people for the king before the 
king had done a stroke to conquer the Austrians for the 
people ; while, in order to reduce them to the condition of 
Piedmontese soldiery, the flame of their patriotic enthusiasm 
was systematically damped, and instead of apprentices in 
war, who possessed at any rate the elementary stuff of sol- 
diers, miserable dummies were drafted into the royal service. 
The Tuscans and the Romans had good reason to complain 
on behalf of their princes, as had the Venetians and the 
Lombards for the cause of their Republic. Neither Tus- 
cans, Romans, Venetians, nor Lombards were offering up 
their lives simply to obtain a change of rulers; though all 
Italy was ready to bow in allegiance to a king of proved 
kingly quality. Early in the campaign the cry of treason 
was muttered, and on all sides such became the temper of 
the Alpine volunteers, that Angelo and Rinaldo Guidascarpi 
were forced to join their cousin under Corte, by the disper- 
sion of their band, amounting to something more than 
eighteen hundred fighting lads, whom a Piedmontese supe- 
rior officer summoned peremptorily to shout for the king. 
They thundered as one voice for the Italian Republic, and 
instantly broke up and disbanded. This was the folly of 
the young: Carlo Ammiani confessed that it was no better; 
but he knew that a breath of generous confidence from the 
self-appointed champion of the national cause would have 
subdued his impatience at royalty and given heart and cheer 
to his sickening comrades. He began to frown angrily when 
he thought of Vittoria. “Where is she now? — where now?” 
he asked himself in the season of his most violent wrath at 
the king. Her conduct grew inseparable in his mind from 
the king’s deeds. The sufferings, the fierce irony, the very 
deaths of the men surrounding him in arms, rose up in 
accusation against the woman he loved. 


342 


VITTORIA 


CHAPTER XXXII 

EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR 

THE TREACHERY OF PERICLES THE WHITE UMBRELLA 

THE DEATH OF RINALDO GUIDASCARPI 

The king crossed the Mincio. The Marshal, threatened 
on his left flank, drew in his line from the farther Veronese 
heights upon a narrowed battle front before Verona. Here 
they manoeuvred, and the opening successes fell to the king. 
Holding Peschiera begirt, with one sharp passage of arms 
he cleared the right bank of the Adige and stood on the 
semicircle of hills, master of the main artery into Tyrol. 

The village of Pastrengo has given its name to the day. 
It was a day of intense heat coming after heavy rains. The 
arid soil steamed; the white powder-smoke curled in long 
horizontal columns across the hazy ring of the fight. Seen 
from a distance it was like a huge downy ball, kicked this 
way and that between the cypresses by invisible giants. A 
pair of eager-eyed women gazing on a battle-field for the 
first time could but ask themselves in bewilderment whether 
the fate of countries were verily settled in such a fashion. 
Par in the rear, Vittoriaand Laura heard the cannon-shots; 
a sullen dull sound, as of a mallet striking upon rotten 
timber. They drove at speed. The great thumps became 
varied by musketry volleys, that were like blocks of rock- 
boulder tumbled in the roll of a mountain torrent. These, 
then, were the voices of Italy and Austria speaking the 
devilish tongue of the final alternative. Cannon, rockets, 
musketry, and now the run of drums, now the ring of 
bugles, now the tramp of horses, and the field was like a 
landslip. A joyful bright black death-wine seemed to pour 
from the bugles all about. The women strained their senses 
to hear and see ; they could realize nothing of a reality so 
absolute; their feelings were shattered, and crowded over 
them in patches; — horror, glory, panic, hope, shifted lights 
within their bosoms. The fascination and repulsion of the 
image of Force divided them. They feared; they were 


THE TREACHERY OF PERICLES, ETC. 


343 


prostrate; they sprang in praise. The image of Force was 
god and devil to their souls. They strove to understand 
why the field was marked with blocks of men who made a 
plume of vapour here, and hurried thither. The action 
of their intellects resolved to a blank marvel at seeing an 
imminent thing — an interrogation to almighty heaven — 
treated with method, not with fury streaming forward. 
Cleave the opposing ranks! Cry to God for fire! Cut 
them through ! They had come to see the Song of Deborah 
performed before their eyes, and they witnessed only a bat- 
tle. Blocks of infantry gathered densely, thinned to a line, 
wheeled in column, marched: blocks of cavalry changed 
posts : artillery bellowed from one spot and quickly selected 
another. Infantry advanced in the wake of tiny smoke- 
puffs, halted, advanced again, rattled files of shots, became 
struck into knots, faced half about as from a blow of the 
back of a hand, retired orderly. Cavalry curved like a 
flickering scimetar in their rear; artillery plodded to its 
further station. Innumerable tiny smoke-puffs then pre- 
ceded a fresh advance of infantry. The enemy were on 
the hills and looked mightier, for they were revealed among 
red flashes of their guns, and stood partly visible above 
clouds of hostile smoke and through clouds of their own, 
which grasped viscously by the skirts of the hills. Yet it 
seemed a strife of insects, until, one by one, soldiers who 
had gone into yonder white pit for the bloody kiss of death, 
and had got it on their faces, were borne by. Yittoria and 
Laura knelt in this horrid stream of mortal anguish to give 
succour from their stores in the carriage. Their natural 
emotions were distraught. They welcomed the sight of 
suffering thankfully, for the poor blotted faces were so 
glad at sight of them. Torture was their key to the read- 
ing of the battle. They gazed on the field no longer, but 
let the roaring wave of combat wash up to them what it 
would. 

The hill behind Pastrengo was twice stormed. When 
the bluecoats first fell back, a fine charge of Piedmontese 
horse cleared the slopes for a second effort, and they went 
up and on, driving the enemy from hill to hill. The Adige 
was crossed by the Austrians under cover of Tyrolese rifle- 
shots. 


344 


YITTORIA 


Then, with Beppo at their heels, bearing water, wine, 
and brandy, the women walked in the paths of carnage, and 
saw the many faces of death. Laura whispered strangely, 
“ How light-hearted they look ! ” The wounded called their 
comforters sweet names. Some smoked and some sang, 
some groaned; all were quick to drink. Their jokes at the 
dead were universal. They twisted their bodies painfully 
to stick a cigar between dead lips, and besprinkle them with 
the last drops of liquor in their cups, laughing a benedic- 
tion. These scenes put grievous chains on Yittoria’s spirit, 
but Laura evidently was not the heavier for them. Glorious 
Yerona shone under the sunset as their own to come; Pes- 
chiera, on the blue lake, was in the hollow of their hands. 
“ Prizes worth any quantity of blood,” said Laura. Yittoria 
confessed that she had seen enough of blood, and her aspect 
provoked Laura to utter, “For God’s sake, think of some- 
thing miserable; — cry, if you can! ” 

Vittoria’s underlip dropped sickly with the question, 
“Why?” 

Laura stated the physical necessity with Italian naivete. 

“If I can,” said Yittoria, and blinked to get a tear; but 
laughter helped as well to relieve her, and it came on their 
return to the carriage. They found the spy Luigi sitting 
beside the driver. He informed them that Antonio-Pericles 
had been in the track of the army ever since their flight 
from Turin ; daily hurrying off with whip of horses at the 
sound of cannon-shot, and gradually stealing back to the 
extreme rear. This day he had flown from Oliosi to Cav- 
riani, and was, perhaps, retracing his way already as before, 
on fearful toe-tips. Luigi acted the caution of one who 
stepped blindfolded across hot iron plates. Yittoria, with- 
out a spark of interest, asked why the Signor Antonio should 
be following the army. 

“Why, it’s to find you, signorina.” 

Luigi’s comical emphasis conjured up in a jumbled pict- 
ure the devotion, the fury, the zeal, the terror of Antonio- 
Pericles — a mixture of demoniacal energy and ludicrous 
trepidation. She imagined his long figure, fantastical as a 
shadow, off at huge strides, and back, with eyes sliding 
swiftly to the temples, and his odd serpent’s head raised to 
peer across the plains, and occasionally to exclaim to the 


THE TREACHERY OF PERICLES, ETC. 345 

reasonable heavens in anger at men and loathing of her. 
She laughed ungovernably. Luigi exclaimed that, albeit 
in disgrace with the signor Antonio, he had been sent for 
to serve him afresh, and had now been sent forward to 
entreat the gracious signorina to grant her sincerest friend 
and adorer an interview. She laughed at Pericles, but in 
truth she almost loved the man for his worship of her Art, 
and representation of her dear peaceful practice of it. 

The interview between them took place at Oliosi. There, 
also, she met Georgiana Ford, the half-sister of Merthyr 
Powys, who told her that Merthyr and Augustus Gambier 
were in the ranks of a volunteer contingent in the king’s 
army, and might have been present at Pastrengo. Georgiana 
held aloof from battle-fields, her business being simply to 
serve as Merthyr’s nurse in case of wounds, or to see the 
last of him in case of death. She appeared to have no en- 
thusiasm. She seconded strongly the vehement persuasions 
addressed by Pericles to Yittoria. Her disapproval of the 
presence of her sex on fields of battle was precise. Pericles 
„had followed the army to give Vittoria one last chance, he 
said, and drag her away from this sick country, as he called 
it, pointing at the dusty land from the windows of the inn. 
On first seeing her he gasped like one who has recovered a 
lost thing. To Laura he was a fool ; but Yittoria enjoyed 
his wildest outbursts, and her half-sincere humility encour- 
aged him to think that he had captured her at last. He 
enlarged on the perils surrounding her voice in dusty bel- 
lowing Lombardy, and on the ardour of his friendship in 
exposing himself to perils as tremendous, that he might 
rescue her. While speaking he pricked a lively ear for the 
noise of guns, hearing a gun in everything, and jumping to 
the window with horrid imprecations. His carriage was 
horsed at the doors below. Let the horses die, he said ; let 
the coachman have sun-stroke. Let hundreds perish, if 
Yittoria would only start in an hour — in two — to-night — 
to-morrow. 

“ Because, do you see,” — he turned to Laura and Geor- 
giana, submitting to the vexatious necessity of seeming 
reasonable to these creatures, — “she is a casket for one 
pearl. It is only one, but it is one, mon Dieu ! and inscru- 
table heaven, mesdames, has made the holder of it mad. Her 


346 


VITTOKIA 


voice has but a sole skin ; it is not like a body ; it bleeds to 
death at a scratch. A spot on the pearl, and it is perished 
— pfoof ! Ah, cruel thing ! impious, I say. I have watched, 
I have reared her. Speak to me of mothers ! I have 
cherished her for her splendid destiny — to see it go down, 
heels up, among quarrels of boobies ! Yes; we have war in 
Italy. Fight! Fight in this beautiful climate that you 
may be dominated by a blue coat, not by a white coat. We 
are an intelligent race ; we are a civilized people ; we will 
fight for that. What has a voice of the very heavens to do 
with your fighting ? I heard it first in England, in a fir- 
wood, in a month of Spring, at night-time, fifteen miles 
and a quarter from the city of London — oh, city of peace ! 
Sandra — you will come there. I give you thousands addi- 
tional to the sum stipulated. You have no rival. Sandra 
Belloni ! no rival, I say ” — he invoked her in English, — 
“ and you hear — you, to be a draggle-tail vivandiere wiz a 
brandy-bottle at your hips and a reputation going like ze 
brandy. Ah! pardon, mesdames; but did mankind ever 
see a frenzy like this girl’s ? Speak, Sandra. I could cry 
it like Michiella to Camilla — Speak ! ” 

Yittoria compelled him to despatch his horses to stables. 
He had relays of horses at war-prices between Castiglione 
and Pavia, and a retinue of servants ; nor did he hesitate to 
inform the ladies that, before entrusting his person to the 
hazards of war, he had taken care to be provided with safe- 
conduct passes for both armies, as befitted a prudent man 
of peace — “ or sense ; it is one, mesdames.” 

Notwithstanding his terror at the guns, and disgust at 
the soldiery and the bad fare at the inn, Yittoria’s presence 
kept him lingering in this wretched place, though he cried 
continually, “I shall have heart-disease.” He believed at 
first that he should subdue her ; then it became his inten- 
tion to carry her off. 

It was to see Merthyr that she remained. Merthyr came 
there the day after the engagement at Santa Lucia. They 
had not met since the days at Meran. He was bronzed, and 
keen with strife, and looked young, but spoke not over-hope- 
fully. He scolded her for wishing to taste battle, and com- 
pared her to a bad swimmer on deep shores. Pericles 
bounded with delight to hear him, and said he had not sup- 


THE TREACHERY OF PERICLES, ETC. 


847 


posed there was so much sense in Powys. Merthyr confessed 
that the Austrians had as good as beaten them at Santa 
Lucia. The tactical combinations of the Piedmontese were 
wretched. He was enamoured of the gallantry of the Duke 
of Savoy, who had saved the right wing of the army from 
rout while covering the backward movement. Why there 
had been any fight at all at Santa Lucia, where nothing was 
to be gained, much to be lost, he was incapable of telling ; 
but attributed it to an antique chivalry on the part of the 
king, that had prompted the hero to a trial of strength, a 
bout of blood-letting. 

“ You do think he is a hero ? ” said Vittoria. 

“ He is ; and he will march to Venice.” 

“And open the opera at Venice,” Pericles sneered. 
“Powys, moncher, cure her of this beastly dream. It is a 
scandal to you to want a woman’s help. You were defeated 
at Santa Lucia. I say bravo to anything that brings you to 
reason. Bravo ! You hear me.” 

The engagement at Santa Lucia was designed by the king 
to serve as an instigating signal for the Veronese to rise in 
revolt ; and this was the secret of Charles Albert’s stultify- 
ing manoeuvres between Peschiera and Mantua. Instead of 
matching his military skill against the wary old Marshal’s, 
he was offering incentives to conspiracy. Distrusting the 
revolution, which was a force behind him, he placed such 
reliance on its efforts in his front as to make it the pivot of 
his actions. 

“ The volunteers North-east of Vicenza are doing the real 
work for us, I believe,” said Merthyr ; and it seemed so then, 
as it might have been indeed, had they not been left almost 
entirely to themselves to do it. 

These tidings of a fight lost set Laura and Vittoria quiver- 
ing with nervous irritation. They had been on the field of 
Pastrengo, and it was won. They had been absent from 
Santa Lucia. What was the deduction ? Not such as rea- 
son would have made for them ; but they were at the mercy 
of the currents of the blood. “ Let us go on,” said Laura. 
Merthyr refused to convoy them. Pericles drove with him 
an hour on the road, and returned in glee, to find Vittoria 
and Laura seated in their carriage, and Luigi scuffling with 
Beppo. 


348 


YITTORIA 


“ Padrone, see how I assist you,” cried Luigi. 

Upon this Beppo instantly made a swan’s neck of his body 
and trumpeted : “ A sally from the fortress for forage.” 

“ Whip ! whip ! ” Pericles shouted to his coachman, and 
the two carriages parted company at the top of their speed. 

Pericles fell a victim to a regiment of bersaglieri that 
wanted horses, and unceremoniously stopped his pair and 
took possession of them on the route for Peschiera. He was 
left in a stranded carriage between a dusty ditch and a mul- 
berry bough. Yittoria and Laura were not much luckier. 
They were met by a band of deserters, who made no claim 
upon the horses, but stood for drink, and having therewith 
fortified their fine opinion of themselves, petitioned for money. 
A kiss was their next demand. Money and good humour 
saved the women from indignity. The band of rascals went 
off with a 1 Viva l’ltalia.’ Such scum is upon every popular 
rising, as Yittoria had to learn. Days of rain and an incom- 
prehensible inactivity of the royal army kept her at a mis- 
erable inn, where the walls were bare, the cock had crowed 
his last. The guns of Peschiera seemed to roam over the 
plain like an echo unwillingly aroused that seeks a hollow for 
its further sleep. Laura sat pondering for hours, harsh in 
manner, as if she hated her. “ I think,” she said once, “ that 
women are those persons who have done evil in another 
world.” The “ why ? ” from Yittoria was uttered simply to 
awaken friendly talk, but Laura relapsed into her gloom. 
A village priest, a sleek gentle creature, who shook his head 
to earth when he hoped, and filled his nostrils with snuff 
when he desponded, gave them occasional companionship 
under the title of consolation. He wished the Austrians to 
be beaten, remarking, however, that they were good Catholics, 
most fervent Catholics. As the Lord decided, so it would 
end ! “ Oh, delicious creed ! ” Laura broke out : “ Oh, dear 

and sweet doctrine! that results and developments in a 
world where there is more evil than good are approved by 
heaven.” She twisted the mild man in supple steel of her 
irony so tenderly that Yittoria marvelled to hear her speak 
of him in abhorrence when they quitted the village. “ Not 
to be born a woman, and voluntarily to be a woman ! ” ejacu- 
lated Laura. “ How many, how many are we to deduct from 
the male population of Italy ? Cross in hand, he should be 


THE TREACHERY OF PERICLES, ETC. 


349 


at the head of our arms, not whimpering in a corner for white 
bread. Wretch ! he makes the marrow in my bones rage at 
him. He chronicled a pig that squeaked.” 

Why had she been so gentle with him ? 

“ Because, my dear, when I loathe a thing I never care to 
exhaust my detestation before I can strike it,” said the true 
Italian. 

They were on the field of Goito ; it was won. It was won 
against odds. At Pastrengo they witnessed an encounter ; 
this was a battle. Vittoria perceived that there was the 
difference between a symphony and a lyric song. The 
blessedness of the sensation that death can be light and 
easy dispossessed her of the meaner compassion, half made 
up of cowardice, which she had been nearly borne down by 
on the field of Pastrengo. At an angle on a height off the 
left wing of the royal army the face of the battle was plain 
to her : the movements of the troops were clear as strokes on 
a slate. Laura flung her life into her eyes, and knelt and 
watched, without summing one sole thing from what her 
senses received. 

Vittoria said, “We are too far away to understand it.” 

“No,” said Laura, “we are too far away to feel it.” 

The savage soul of the woman was robbed of its share of 
tragic emotion by having to hold so far aloof. Plashes of 
guns were but flashes of guns up there where she knelt. She 
thirsted to read the things written by them; thirsted for 
their mystic terrors, somewhat as souls of great prophets 
have craved for the full revelation of those fitful under- 
lights which inspired their mouths. 

Charles Albert’s star was at its highest when the Pied- 
montese drums beat for an advance of the whole line at 
Goito. 

Laura stood up, white as furnace-fire. “ Women can do 
some good by praying,” she said. She believed that she had 
been praying. That was her part in the victory. 

Bain fell as from the forehead of thunder. From black 
eve to black dawn the women were among dead and dying 
men, where the lanterns trailed a slow flame across faces 
that took the light and let it go. They returned to their 
carriage exhausted. The ways were almost impassable for 
carriage-wheels. While they were toiling on and exchang- 


850 


VITTORIA 


ing their drenched clothes, Yittoria heard Merthyr’s voice 
speaking to Beppo on the box. He was saying that Captain 
Gambier lay badly wonnded ; brandy was wanted for him. 
She flung a cloak over Laura, and handed out the flask with 
a naked arm. It was not till she saw him again that she 
remembered or even felt that he had kissed the arm. A 
spot of sweet fire burned on it just where the soft fulness of 
a woman’s arm slopes to the bend. He chid her for being 
on the field and rejoiced in a breath, for the carriage and 
its contents helped to rescue his wounded brother in arms 
from probable death. Gambier, wounded in thigh and ankle 
by rifle-shot, was placed in the carriage. His clothes were 
saturated with the soil of Goito ; but wounded and wet, he 
smiled gaily, and talked sweet boyish English. Merthyr 
gave the driver directions to wind along up the Mincio. 
“Georgiana will be at the nearest village — she has an 
instinct for battle-fields, or keeps spies in her pay,” he said. 
“ Tell her I am safe. We march to cut them (the enemy) 
off from Verona, and I can’t leave. The game is in our 
hands. We shall give you Venice.” 

Georgiana was found at the nearest village. Gambier’s 
wounds had been dressed by an army-surgeon. She looked 
at the dressing, and said that it would do for six hours. 
This singular person had fully qualified herself to attend 
on a soldier-brother. She had studied medicine for that 
purpose, and she had served as nurse in a London hospital. 
Her nerves were completely under control. She could sit 
in attendance by a sick-bed for hours, hearing distant can- 
non, and the brawl of soldiery and vagabonds in the street, 
without a change of countenance. Her dress was plain 
black from throat to heel, with a skull cap of white, like a 
Moravian sister. Vittoria reverenced her ; but Georgiana’s 
manner in return was cold aversion, so much more scornful 
than disdain that it offended Laura, who promptly put her 
finger on the blot in the fair character with the word ‘Jeal- 
ousy ; ’ but a single word is too broad a mark to be exactly 
true. “She is a perfect example of your English,” Laura 
said. “ Brave, good, devoted, admirable — ice at the heart. 
The judge of others, of course. I always respected her ; I 
never liked her; and I should be afraid of a comparison 
with her. Her management of the household of this inn is 
extraordinary.” 


THE TREACHERY OF PERICLES, ETC. 


351 


Georgiana condescended to advise Vittoria once more not 
to dangle after armies. 

“ I wish to wait here to assist you in nursing our friend,” 
said Vittoria. 

Georgiana replied that her strength was unlikely to fail. 

After two days of incessant rain, sunshine blazed over 
the watery Mantuan flats. Laura drove with Beppo to see 
whether the army was in motion, for they were distracted 
by rumours. Vittoria clung to her wounded friend, whose 
pleasure was the hearing her speak. She expected Laura’s 
return by set of sun. After dark a messenger came to her, 
saying that the signora had sent a carriage to fetch her to 
Valeggio. Her immediate supposition was that Merthyr 
might have fallen. She found Luigi at the carriage-door, 
and listened to his mysterious directions and remarks that 
not a minute must be lost, without suspicion. He said that 
the signora was in great trouble, very anxious to see the 
signorina instantly ; there was but a distance of five miles 
to traverse. 

She thought it strange that the carriage should be so 
luxuriously fitted with lights and silken pillows, but her 
ideas were all of Merthyr, until she by chance discovered a 
packet marked ‘ chocolate ,’ which told her at once that she 
was entrapped by Antonio-Pericles. Luigi would not answer 
her cry to him. After some fruitless tremblings of wrath, 
she lay back relieved by the feeling that Merthyr was safe, 
come what might come to herself. Things could lead to 
nothing but an altercation with Pericles, and for this scene 
she prepared her mind. The carriage stopped while she 
was dozing. Too proud to supplicate in the darkness, she 
left it to the horses to bear her on, reserving her energies 
for the morning’s interview, and saying, “The farther he 
takes me the angrier I shall be.” She dreamed of her 
anger while asleep, but awakened so frequently during the 
night that morning was at her eyelids before they divided. 
To her amazement, she saw the carriage surrounded by 
Austrian troopers. Pericles was spreading cigars among 
them, and addressing them affably. The carriage was on a 
good road, between irrigated flats, that flashed a lively green 
and bright steel blue for miles away. She drew down the 
blinds to cry at leisure; her wings were clipped, and she 


352 


VITTORIA 


lost heart. Pericles came round to her when the carriage 
had drawn up at an inn. He was egregiously polite, but 
modestly kept back any expressions of triumph. A body 
of Austrians, cavalry and infantry, were breaking camp. 
Pericles accorded her an hour of rest. She perceived that 
he was anticipating an outbreak of the anger she had nursed 
overnight, and baffled him so far by keeping dumb. Luigi 
was sent up to her to announce the expiration of her hour 
of grace. 

“ Ah, Luigi ! ” she said. “ Signorina, only wait, and see 
how Luigi can serve two,” he whispered, writhing under 
the reproachfulness of her eyes. At the carriage-door she 
asked Pericles whither he was taking her. “ Not to Turin, 
not to London, Sandra Belloni ! ” he replied ; “ not to a place 
where you are wet all night long, to wheeze for ever after it. 
Go in.” She entered the carriage quickly, to escape from 
staring officers, whose laughter rang in her ears and humbled 
her bitterly ; she felt herself bringing dishonour on her lover. 
The carriage continued in the track of the Austrians. Peri- 
cles was audibly careful to avoid the border regiments. He 
showered cigars as he passed ; now and then he exhibited a 
paper ; and on one occasion he brought a General officer to 
the carriage-door, opened it and pointed in. A white-hel- 
meted dragoon rode on each side of the carriage for the 
remainder of the day. The delight of the supposition that 
these Austrians were retreating before the invincible arms 
of King Carlo Alberto kept her cheerful ; but she heard no 
guns in the rear. A blocking of artillery and waggons com- 
pelled a halt, and then Pericles came and faced her. He 
looked profoundly ashamed of himself, ready as he was for 
an animated defence of his proceedings. 

“ Where are you taking me, sir ? ” she said in English. 

“ Sandra, will you be a good child ? It is anywhere you 
please, if you will promise ” 

“ I will promise nothing.” 

“ Zen, I lock you up in Verona.” 

“ In Verona ! ” 

“ Sandra, will you promise to me ? ” 

“ I will promise nothing.” 

“Zen I lock you up in Verona. It is settled. No more 
of it. I come to say, we shall not reach a village. I am 


THE TREACHERY OF PERICLES, ETC. 


353 


sorry. We have soldiers for a guard. You draw out a 
board and lodge in your carriage as in a bed. Biscuits, 
potted meats, prunes, bon-bons, chocolate, wine — you shall 
find all at your right hand and your left. I am desolate in 
offending you. Sandra, if you will promise ” 

“ I will promise — this is what I will promise,” said 
Yittoria. 

Pericles thrust his ear forward, and withdrew it as if it 
had been slapped. 

She promised to run from him at the first opportunity, to 
despise him ever after, and never to sing again in his hear- 
ing. With the darkness Luigi appeared to light her lamp ; 
he mouthed perpetually, “ To-morrow, to-morrow.” The 
watch-fires of Austrians encamped in the fields encircled 
her ; and moving up and down, the cigar of Antonio-Pericles 
was visible. He had not eaten or drunk, and he was out 
there sleepless ; he walked conquering his fears in the thick 
of war troubles : all for her sake. She watched critically to 
see whether the cigar-light was puffed in fretfulness. It 
burned steadily; and the thought of Pericles supporting 
patience quite overcame her. In a fit of humour that was 
almost tears, she called to him and begged him to take a 
place in the carriage and have food. “ If it is your pleas- 
ure,” he said ; and threw off his cloak. The wine comforted 
him. Thereupon he commenced a series of strange gesticu- 
lations, and ended by blinking at the window, saying, “No, 
no ; it is impossible to explain. I have no voice ; I am not 
gifted. It is,” he tapped at his chest, “it is here. It is 
imprisoned in me.” 

“What?” said Yittoria, to encourage him. 

“ It can never be explained, my child. Am I not respect- 
ful to you ? Am I not worshipful to you ? But, no ! it can 
never be explained. Some do call me mad. I know it ; I 
am laughed at. Oh ! do I not know zat ? Perfectly well. 
My ancestors adored Goddesses. I discover ze voice of a 
Goddess: I adore it. So you call me mad; it is tome — 
what you call me — juste ze same. I am possessed wiz 
passion for her voice. So it will be till I go to ashes. It 
is to me ze one zsing divine in a pig, a porpoise world. 
It is to me — I talk! It is unutterable — impossible to 
tell.” 


354 


VITTORIA 


“ But I understand it ; I know you must feel it,” said 
Vittoria. 

“ But you hate me, Sandra. You hate your Pericles.” 

“No, I do not; you are my good friend, my good 
Pericles.” 

“ I am your good Pericles ? So you obey me ? ” 

“ In what ? ” 

“ You come to London ? ” 

“ I shall not.” 

“ You come to Turin ? ” 

“ I cannot promise.” 

“To Milan?” 

“No; not yet.” 

“Ungrateful little beast ! minx! temptress! You seduce 
me into your carriage to feed me, to fill me, for to coax me,” 
cried Pericles. 

“Am I the person to have abuse poured on me?” Vittoria 
rejoined, and she frowned. “ Might I not have called you a 
wretched whimsical money-machine, without the comprehen- 
sion of a human feeling ? You are doing me a great wrong 
— to win my submission, as I see, and it half amuses me ; 
but the pretence of an attempt to carry me off from my 
friends is an offence that I should take certain care to punish 
in another. I do not give you any promise, because the first 
promise of all — the promise to keep one — is not in my 
power. Shut your eyes and sleep where you are, and in the 
morning think better of your conduct ! ” 

“ Of my conduct, mademoiselle ! ” Pericles retained this 
sentence in his head till the conclusion of her animated 
speech, — “of my conduct I judge better zan to accept of 
such a privilege as you graciously offer to me;” and he 
retired with a sour grin, very much subdued by her unex- 
pected capacity for expression. The bugles of the Austrians 
were soon ringing. There was a trifle of a romantic flavour 
in the notes which Vittoria tried not to feel; the smart 
iteration of them all about her rubbed it off, but she was 
reduced to repeat them, and take them in various keys. 
This was her theme for the day. 

They were in the midst of mulberries, out of sight of the 
army ; green mulberries, and the green and the bronze young 
vine-leaf. It was a delicious day, but she began to fear that 


THE TREACHERY OF PERICLES, ETC. 


355 


she was approaching Verona, and that Pericles was acting 
seriously. The bronze young vine-leaf seemed to her like 
some warrior’s face, as it would look when beaten by weather, 
burned by the sun. They came now to inns which had been 
visited by both armies. Luigi established communication 
with the innkeepers before the latter had stated the names 
of villages to Pericles, who stood map in hand, believing 
himself at last to be no more conscious of his position than 
an atom in a whirl of dust. Vittoria still refused to give him 
any promise, and finally, on a solitary stretch of the road, 
he appealed to her mercy. She was the mistress of the 
carriage, he said ; he had never meant to imprison her in 
Verona; his behaviour was simply dictated by his adoration : 
— alas ! This was true or not true, but it was certain that 
the ways were confounded to them. Luigi, despatched to 
reconnoitre from a neighbouring eminence, reported a Pied- 
montese encampment far ahead, and a walking tent that 
was coming on their route. The walking tent was an enor- 
mous white umbrella. Pericles advanced to meet it ; after 
an interchange of opening formalities, he turned about and 
clapped hands. The umbrella was folded. Vittoria recog- 
nized the last man she would then have thought of meeting ; 
he seemed to have jumped out of an ambush from Meran in 
Tyrol: — it was Wilfrid. Their greeting was disturbed 
by the rushing up of half-a-dozen troopers. The men 
claimed him as an Austrian spy. With difficulty Vittoria 
obtained leave to drive him on to their commanding officer. 
It appeared that the white umbrella was notorious for having 
been seen on previous occasions threading the Piedmontese 
lines into and out of Peschiera. These very troopers swore to 
it ; but they could not swear to Wilfrid, and white umbrellas 
were not absolutely uncommon. Vittoria declared that 
Wilfrid was an old English friend; Pericles vowed that 
Wilfrid was one of their party. The prisoner was clearly 
an Englishman. As it chanced, the officer before whom 
Wilfrid was taken had heard Vittoria sing on the great night 
at La Scala. “ Signorina, your word should pass the Aus- 
trian Field-Marshal himself,” he said, and merely requested 
Wilfrid to state on his word of honour that he was not in 
the Austrian service, to which Wilfrid unhesitatingly replied, 
“ I am not.” 


356 


VITTORIA 


Permission was then accorded to him to proceed in the 
carriage. 

Yittoria held her hand to Wilfrid. He took the fingers 
and bowed over them. 

He was perfectly self-possessed, and cool even under her 
eyes. Like a pedlar he carried a pack on his back, which 
was his life ; for his business was a combination of scout 
and spy. 

“You have saved me from a ditch to-day,” he said; 
“ every fellow has some sort of love for his life, and I must 
thank you for the odd luck of your coming by. I knew you 
were on this ground somewhere. If the rascals had searched 
me, I should not have come off so well. I did not speak 
falsely to that officer; I am not in the Austrian service. I 
am a volunteer spy. I am an unpaid soldier. I am the 
dog of the army — fetching and carrying for a smile and a 
pat on the head. I am ruined, and I am working my way 
up as best I can. My uncle disowns me. It is to General 
Schoneck that I owe this chance of re-establishing myself. 
I followed the army out of Milan. I was at Melegnano, at 
Pastrengo, at Santa Lucia. If I get nothing for it, the 
Lenkensteins at least shall not say that I abandoned the 
flag in adversity. I am bound for K-ivoli. The fortress 
(Peschiera) has just surrendered. The Marshal is stealing 
round to make a dash on Vicenza.” So far he spoke like 
one apart from her, but a flush crossed his forehead. “ I 
have not followed you. I have obeyed your brief directions. 
I saw this carriage yesterday in the ranks of our troops. I 
saw Pericles. I guessed who might be inside it. I let it 
pass me. Could I do more?” 

“Hot if you wanted to punish me,” said Yittoria. 

She was afflicted by his refraining from reproaches in his 
sunken state. 

Their talk bordered the old life which they had known, 
like a rivulet coming to falls where it threatens to be a 
torrent and a flood ; like flame bubbling the wax of a seal. 
She was surprised to find herself expecting tenderness from 
him : and, startled by the languor in her veins, she conceived 
a contempt for her sex and her own weak nature. To mask 
that, an excessive outward coldness was assumed. “You 
can serve as a spy, Wilfrid! ” 


THE TREACHERY OF PERICLES, ETC. 


357 


The answer was ready : “ Having twice served as a traitor, 
I need not be particular. It is what my uncle and the Len- 
kensteins call me. I do my best to work my way up again. 
Despise me for it, if you please.” 

On the contrary, she had never respected him so much. 
She got herself into opposition to him by provoking him to 
speak with pride of his army; but the opposition was arti- 
ficial, and she called to Carlo Ammiani in heart. “ I will 
leave these places, cover up my head, and crouch till the 
struggle is decided.” 

The difficulty was now to be happily rid of Wilfrid by 
leaving him in safety. Piedmontese horse scoured the 
neighbourhood, and any mischance that might befall him 
she traced to her hand. She dreaded at every instant to 
hear him speak of his love for her; yet how sweet it would 
have been to hear it, — to hear him speak of passionate love; 
to shape it in deep music; to hear one crave for what she 
gave to another! “I am sinking: I am growing degraded,” 
she thought. But there was no other way for her to quicken 
her imagination of her distant and offended lover. The 
sights on the plains were strange contrasts to these con- 
flicting inner emotions: she seemed to be living in two 
divided worlds. 

Pericles declared anew that she was mistress of the car- 
riage. She issued orders: “The nearest point to Rivoli, 
and then to Brescia.” 

Pericles broke into shouts. “She has arrived at her 
reason! Hurrah for Brescia! I beheld you,” he confessed 
to Wilfrid, — “it was on ze right of Mincio, my friend. I 
did not know you were so true for Art, or what a hand I 
would have reached to you ! Excuse me now. Let us whip 
on. I am your banker. I shall desire you not to be shot 
or sabred. You are deserving of an effigy on a theatral 
grand stair-case ! ” His gratitude could no further express 
itself. In joy he whipped the horses on. Pools might be 
fighting — he was the conqueror. From Brescia, one leap 
took him in fancy to London. He composed mentally a 
letter to be forwarded immediately to a London manager, 
directing him to cause the appearance of articles in the 
journals on the grand new prima donna, whose singing had 
awakened the people of Italy. 


358 


VITTORIA 


Another day brought them in view of the Lago di Garda. 
The flag of Sardinia hung from the walls of Peschiera. And 
now Vittoria saw the Pastrengo hills — dear hills, that drove 
her wretched languor out of her, and made her soul and body 
one again. The horses were going at a gallop. Shots were 
heard. To the left of them, somewhat in the rear, on higher 
ground, there was an encounter of a body of Austrians and 
Italians: Tyrolese riflemen and the volunteers. Pericles 
was raving. He refused to draw the reins till they had 
reached the village, where one of the horses dropped. From 
the windows of the inn, fronting a clear space, Vittoria 
beheld a guard of Austrians surrounding two or more pris- 
oners. A woman sat near them with her head buried in 
her lap. Presently an officer left the door of the inn and 
spoke to the soldiers. “ That is Count Karl von Lenken- 
stein,” Wilfrid said in a whisper. Pericles had been 
speaking with Count Karl and came up to the room, say- 
ing, “We are to observe something; but we are safe; it is 
only fortune of war.” Wilfrid immediately went out to 
report himself. He was seen giving his papers, after which 
Count Karl waved his Anger back to the inn, and he returned. 
Vittoria sprang to her feet at the words he uttered. Kinaldo 
Guidascarpi was one of the prisoners. The others Wilfrid 
professed not to know. The woman was the wife of Barto 
Kizzo. 

In the great red of sunset the Tyrolese riflemen and a 
body of Italians in Austrian fatigue uniform marched into 
the village. These formed in the space before the inn. It 
seemed as if Count Karl were declaiming an indictment. A 
voice answered, “ I am the man.” It was clear and straight 
as a voice that goes up in the night. Then a procession 
walked some paces on. The woman followed. She fell 
prostrate at the feet of Count Karl. He listened to her 
and nodded. Rinaldo Guidascarpi stood alone with band- 
aged eyes. The woman advanced to him; she put her 
mouth on his ear; there she hung. 

Vittoria heard a single shot, ftinaldo Guidascarpi lay 
stretched upon the ground, and the woman stood over him. 


COUNT KARL LENKENSTEIN, ETC. 


359 


CHAPTER XXXIII 

EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR 

COUNT KARL LENKENSTEIN THE STORY OF THE GUIDA" 

SCARPI — THE VICTORY OF THE VOLUNTEERS 

The smoke of a pistol-shot thinned away while there was 
yet silence. 

“It is a saving of six charges of Austrian ammunition,” 
said Pericles. 

Vittoria stared at the scene, losing faith in her eyesight. 
She could in fact see no distinct thing beyond what appeared 
as an illuminated copper medallion, held at a great distance 
from her, with a dead man and a towering female figure 
stamped on it. 

The events following were like a rush of water on her 
senses. There was fighting up the street of the village, and 
a struggle in the space where Rinaldo had fallen ; successive 
yellowish shots under the rising moonlight, cries from 
Italian lips, quick words of command from German in 
Italian, and one sturdy bull’s roar of a voice that called 
across the tumult to the Austro-Italian soldiery, “ Venite 
fratelli! — come, brothers, come under our banner!” She 
heard “ Rinaldo ! ” called. 

This was a second attack of the volunteers for the rescue 
of their captured comrades. They fought more desper- 
ately than on the hill outside the village : they fought with 
steel. Shot enfiladed them; yet they bore forward in a 
scattered body up to that spot where Rinaldo lay, shouting 
for him. There they turned, — they fled. 

Then there was a perfect stillness, succeeding the strife 
as quickly, Vittoria thought, as a breath yielded succeeds 
a breath taken. 

She accused the heavens of injustice. 

Pericles, prostrate on the floor, moaned that he was 
wounded. She said, “Bleed to death!” 

“ It is my soul, it is my soul is wounded for you, Sandra.” 

“ Dreadful craven man ! ” she muttered. 


360 


VITTORIA 


“ When my soul is shaking for your safety, Sandra Bel- 
loni!” Pericles turned his ear up. “For myself — not; it 
is for you, for you.” 

Assured of the cessation of arms by delicious silence he 
jumped to his feet. 

“Ah! brutes to fight. It is immonde; it is unnatural! ” 

He tapped his finger on the walls for marks of shot, and 
discovered a shot-hole in the wood-work, that had passed 
an arm’s length above her head, into which he thrust his 
finger in an intense speculative meditation, shifting eyes 
from it to her, and throwing them aloft. 

He was summoned to the presence of Count Karl, with 
whom he found Captain Weisspriess, Wilfrid, and officers 
of jagers and the Italian battalion. Barto Rizzo’s wife was 
in a corner of the room. Weisspriess met him with a very 
civil greeting, and introduced him to Count Karl, who 
begged him to thank Vittoria for the aid she had afforded 
to General Schoneck’s emissary in crossing the Piedmontese 
lines. He spoke in Italian. He agreed to conduct Pericles 
to a point on the route of his march, where Pericles and 
his precious prima donna — “our very good friend,” he said, 
jovially — could escape the risk of unpleasant mishaps, and 
arrive at Trent and cities of peace by easy stages. He was 
marching for the neighbourhood of Vicenza. 

A little before dawn Vittoria came down to the carriage. 
Count Karl stood at the door to hand her in. He was young 
and handsome, with a soft flowing blonde moustache and 
pleasant eyes, a contrast to his brother Count Lenkenstein. 
He repeated his thanks to her, which Pericles had not 
delivered; he informed her that she was by no means a 
prisoner, and was simply under the guardianship of friends 
— “though perhaps, signorina, you will not esteem this 
gentleman to be one of your friends.” He pointed to Weiss- 
priess. The officer bowed, but kept aloof. Vittoria per- 
ceived a singular change in him: he had become pale and 
sedate. “Poor fellow! he has had his dose,” Count Karl 
said. “ He is, I beg to assure you, one of your most vehe- 
ment admirers.” 

A piece of her property that flushed her with recollec- 
tions, yet made her grateful, was presently handed to her, 
though not in her old enemy’s presence, by a soldier. It 


COUNT KARL LENKENSTEIN, ETC. 


361 


was the silver-hilted dagger, Carlo’s precious gift, of which 
Weisspriess had taken possession in the mountain-pass over 
the vale of Meran, when he fought the duel with Angelo. 
Whether intended as a peace-offering, or as a simple resti- 
tution, it helped Yittoria to believe that Weisspriess was no 
longer the man he had been. 

The march was ready, but Barto Bizzo’s wife refused to 
move a foot. The officers consulted. She was brought 
before them. The soldiers swore with jesting oaths that 
she had been carefully searched for weapons, and only 
wanted a whipping. “ She must have it,” said Weisspriess. 
Vittoria entreated that she might have a place beside her in 
the carriage. “It is more than I would have asked of you; 
but if you are not afraid of her,” said Count Karl, with an 
apologetic shrug. 

Her heart beat fast when she found herself alone with 
the terrible woman. 

Till then she had never seen a tragic face. Compared 
with this tawny colourlessness, this evil brow, this shut 
mouth, Laura, even on the battle-field, looked harmless. 
It was like the face of a dead savage. The eyeballs were 
full on Yittoria, as if they dashed at an obstacle, not 
embraced an image. In proportion as they seemed to 
widen about her, Yittoria shrank. The whole woman was 
blood to her gaze. 

When she was capable of speaking, she said entreat- 
ingly : — 

“I knew his brother.” 

Not a sign of life was given in reply. 

Companionship with this ghost of broad daylight made 
the fluttering Tyrolese feathers at both windows a welcome 
sight. 

Precautions had been taken to bind the woman’s arms. 
Yittoria offered to loosen the cords, but she dared not touch 
her without a mark of assent. 

“I know Angelo Guidascarpi, Binaldo’s brother,” she 
spoke again. 

The woman’s nostrils bent inward, as when the breath 
we draw is keen as a sword to the heart. Yittoria was 
compelled to look away from her. 

At the mid-day halt Count Karl deigned to justify to her 


362 


YITTORIA 


his intended execution of Rinaldo — the accomplice in the 
slaying of his brother Count Paul. He was evidently eager 
to obtain her good opinion of the Austrian military. “ But 
for this miserable spirit of hatred against us,” he said, “I 
should have espoused an Italian lady ; ” and he asked, “ Why 
not? For that matter, in all but blood we Lenkensteins 
are half Italian, except when Italy menaces the empire. 
Can you blame us for then drawing the sword in earnest? ” 

He proffered his version of the death of Count Paul. 
She kept her own silent in her bosom. 

Clelia Guidascarpi, according to his statement, had first 
been slain by her brothers. Yittoria believed that Clelia 
had voluntarily submitted to death and died by her own 
hand. She was betrothed to an Italian nobleman of 
Bologna, the friend of the brothers. They had arranged 
the marriage ; she accepted the betrothal. “ She loved my 
brother, poor thing!” said Count Karl. “She concealed 
it, and naturally. How could she take a couple of wolves 
into her confidence? If she had told the pair of ruffians 
that she was plighted to an Austrian, they would have 
quieted her at an earlier period. A woman ! a girl — signo- 
rina! The intolerable cowardice amazes me. It amazes 
me that you or anyone can uphold the character of such 
brutes. And when she was dead they lured my brother to 
the house and slew him; fell upon him with daggers, 
stretched him at the foot of her coffin, and then — what 
then? — ran! ran for their lives. One has gone to his 
account. We shall come across the other. He is among 
that volunteer party which attacked us yesterday. The 
body was carried off by them; it is sufficient testimony 
that Angelo Guidascarpi is in the neighbourhood. I should 
be hunting him now but that I am under orders to march 
South-east.” 

The story, as Yittoria knew it, had a different, though 
yet a dreadful, colour. 

“I could have hanged Rinaldo,” Count Karl said further. 
“ I suppose the rascals feared I should use my right, and 
that is why they sent their mad baggage of a woman to 
spare any damage to the family pride. If I had been a 
man to enjoy vengeance, the rope would have swung for 
him. In spite of provocation, I shall simply shoot the 


COUNT KARL LENKENSTEIN, ETC. 363 

other; I pledge my word to it. They shall he paid in coin. 
1 demand no interest.” 

Weisspriess prudently avoided her. Wilfrid held aloof. 
She sat in garden shade till the bugle sounded. Tyrolese 
and Italian soldiers were gibing at her haggard companion 
when she entered the carriage. Fronting this dumb creat- 
ure once more, Yittoria thought of the story of the brothers. 
She felt herself reading it from the very page. The woman 
looked that evil star incarnate which Laura said they were 
born under. 

This is in brief the story of the Guidascarpi. 

They were the offspring of a Bolognese noble house, 
neither wealthy nor poor. In her early womanhood, Clelia 
was left to the care of her brothers. She declined the 
guardianship of Countess Ammiani because of her love for 
them; and the three, with their passion of hatred to the 
Austrians inherited from father and mother, schemed in 
concert to throw off the Austrian yoke. Clelia had soft 
features of no great mark ; by her colouring she was beauti- 
ful, being dark along the eyebrows, with dark eyes, and a 
surpassing richness of Venetian hair. Bologna and Venice 
were married in her aspect. Her brothers conceived her to 
possess such force of mind that they held no secrets from 
her. They did not know that the heart of their sister was 
struggling with an image of Power when she uttered hatred 
of it. She was in truth a woman of a soft heart, with a 
most impressionable imagination. 

There were many suitors for the hand of Clelia Guida- 
scarpi, though her dowry was not the portion of a fat estate. 
Her old nurse counselled the brothers that they should con- 
sent to her taking a husband. They fulfilled this duty as 
one that must be done, and she became sorrowfully the 
betrothed of a nobleman of Bologna; from which hour she 
had no cheerfulness. The brothers quitted Bologna for 
Venice, where there was the bed of a conspiracy. On their 
return they were shaken by rumours of their sister’s mis- 
conduct. An Austrian name was allied to hers in busy 
mouths. A lady, their distant relative, whose fame was 
light, had withdrawn her from the silent house, and made 
display of her. Since she had seen more than an Italian 
girl should see, the brothers proposed to the nobleman her 


864 


VITTORIA 


betrothed to break the treaty; but he was of a mind to 
hurry on the marriage, and recollecting now that she was 
but a woman, the brothers fixed a day for her espousals, 
tenderly, without reproach. She had the choice of taking 
the vows or surrendering her hand. Her old nurse prayed 
for the day of her espousals to come with a quicker step. 

One night she surprised Count Paul Lenkenstein at Clelia’s 
window. Rinaldo was in the garden below. He moved to 
the shadow of a cypress, and was seen moving by the old 
nurse. The lover took the single kiss he had come for, was 
led through the chamber, and passed unchallenged into the 
street. Clelia sat between locked doors and darkened win- 
dows, feeling colder to the brothers she had been reared 
with than to all other men. upon the earth. They sent for 
her after a lapse of hours. Her old nurse was kneeling at 
their feet. Rinaldo asked for the name of her lover. She 
answered with it. Angelo said, “ It will be better for you 
to die : but if you cannot do so easy a thing as that, prepare 
widow’s garments.” They forced her to write three words 
to Count Paul, calling him to her window at midnight. 
Rinaldo fetched a priest : Angelo laid out two swords. An 
hour before the midnight, Clelia’ s old nurse raised the house 
with her cries. Clelia was stretched dead in her chamber. 
The brothers kissed her in turn, and sat, one at her head, 
one at her feet. At midnight her lover stood among them. 
He was gravely saluted, and bidden to look upon the dead 
body. Angelo said to him, “ Had she lived you should have 
wedded her hand. She is gone of her own free choice, and 
one of us follows her.” With the sweat of anguish on his 
forehead, Count Paul drew sword. The window was barred ; 
six male domestics of the household held high lights in 
the chamber; the priest knelt beside one corpse, awaiting 
the other. 

Yittoria’s imagination could not go beyond that scene, 
but she looked out on the brother of the slain youth with 
great pity, and with a strange curiosity. The example 
given by Clelia of the possible love of an Italian girl for 
the white uniform, set her thinking whether so monstrous 
a fact could ever be doubled in this world. “Could it 
happen to me?” she asked herself, and smiled, as she half- 
fashioned the words on her lips, “ It is a pretty uniform.” 


COUNT KARL LENKENSTEIN, ETC. 


865 


Her reverie was broken by a hiss of “ Traitress ! ” from 
the woman opposite. 

She coloured guiltily, tried to speak, and sat trembling. 
A divination of intense hatred had perhaps read the thought 
within her breast: or it was a mere outburst of hate. The 
woman’s face was like the wearing away of smoke from a 
spot whence shot has issued. Yittoria walked for the 
remainder of the day. That fearful companion oppressed 
her. She felt that one who followed armies should be cast 
in such a frame, and now desired with all her heart to render 
full obedience to Carlo, and abide in Brescia, or even in 
Milan — a city she thought of shyly. 

The march was hurried to the slopes of the Y icentino, for 
enemies were thick in this district. Pericles refused to 
quit the soldiers, though Count Karl used persuasion. The 
young nobleman said to Yittoria, “Be on your guard when 
you meet my sister Anna. I tell you, we can be as revenge- 
ful as any of you : but you will exonerate me. I do my 
duty; I seek to do no more.” 

At an inn that they reached toward evening she saw the 
innkeeper shoot a little ball of paper at an Italian corporal, 
who put his foot on it and picked it up. The soldier sub- 
sequently passed through the ranks of his comrades, gather- 
ing winks and grins. They were to have rested at the inn, 
but Count Karl was warned by scouts, which was sufficient 
to make Pericles cling to him in avoidance of the volun- 
teers, of whom mainly he was in terror. He looked ague- 
stricken. He would not listen to her, or to reason in any 
shape. “I am on the sea — shall I trust a boat? I stick 
to a ship,” he said. The soldiers marched till midnight. 
It was arranged that the carriage should strike off for Schio 
at dawn. The soldiers bivouacked on the slope of one of 
the low undulations falling to the Yicentino plain. Yittoria 
spread her cloak, and lay under bare sky, not suffering the 
woman to be ejected from the carriage. Hitherto Luigi had 
avoided her. Under pretence of doubling Count Karl’s 
cloak as a pillow for her head, he whispered, “ If the signo- 
rina hears shots let her lie on the ground flat as a sheet.” 
The peacefulness surrounding her precluded alarm. There 
was brilliant moonlight, and the host of stars, all dim; and 
first they beckoned her up to come away from trouble, and 


366 


VITTORIA 


then, through long gazing, she had the fancy that they bent 
and swam about her, making her feel that she lay in the 
hollows of a warm hushed sea. She wished for her lover. 

Men and officers were lying at a stone’s-throw distant. 
The Tyrolese had lit a fire for cooking purposes, by which 
four of them stood, and, lifting hands, sang one of their 
mountain songs, that seemed to her to spring like clear 
water into air, and fall wavering as a feather falls, or the 
light about a stone in water. It lulled her to a half-sleep, 
during which she fancied hearing a broad imitation of a 
cat’s-call from the mountains, that was answered out of 
the camp, and a talk of officers arose in connection with the 
response, and subsided. The carriage was in the shadows 
of the fire. In a little while Luigi and the driver began 
putting the horses to, and she saw Count Karl and Weiss- 
priess go up to Luigi, who declared loudly that it was time. 
The woman inside was aroused. Weisspriess helped to drag 
her out. Luigi kept making much noise, and apologized for 
it by saying that he desired to awaken his master, who was 
stretched in a secure circle among the Tyrolese. Presently 
Yittoria beheld the woman’s arms thrown out free; the next 
minute they were around the body of Weisspriess, and a 
shrewd cry issued from Count Karl. Shots rang from the 
outposts ; the Tyrolese sprang to arms ; “ Sandra ! ” was 
shouted by Pericles; and once more she heard the Venite 
fratelli! of the bull’s voice, and a stream of volunteers 
dashed at the Tyrolese with sword and dagger and bayonet. 
The Austro-Italians stood in a crescent line — the ominous 
form of incipient military insubordination. Their officers 
stormed at them, and called for Count Karl and for Weiss- 
priess. The latter replied like a man stifling, but Count 
Karl’s voice was silent. 

“Weisspriess! here, to me!” the captain sang out in 
Italian. 

“ Ammiani ! here, to me ! ” was replied. 

Yittoria struck her hands together in electrical gladness 
at her lover’s voice and name. It rang most cheerfully. 
Her home was in the conflict where her lover fought, and 
she muttered with ecstasy, “We have met! we have met! ” 
The sound of the keen steel, so exciting to dream of, para- 
lyzed her nerves in a way that powder, more terrible for a 


COUNT KARL LENKENSTEIN, ETC. 


367 


woman’s imagination, would not have done, and she could 
only feebly advance. It was a spacious moonlight, but the 
moonlight appeared to have got of a brassy hue to her eyes, 
though the sparkle of the steel was white ; and she felt too, 
and wondered at it, that the cries and the noise went to her 
throat, as if threatening to choke her. Very soon she found 
herself standing there, watching for the issue of the strife, 
almost as dead as a weight in scales, incapable of clear 
vision. 

Matched against the Tyrolese alone, the volunteers had 
an equal fight in point of numbers, and the advantage of 
possessing a leader; for Count Karl was down, and Weiss- 
priess was still entangled in the woman’s arms. When at 
last Wilfrid got him free, the unsupported Tyrolese were 
giving ground before Carlo Ammiani and his followers. 
These fought with stern fury, keeping close up to their 
enemy, rarely shouting. They presented something like 
the line of a classic bow, with its arrow-head; while the 
Tyrolese were huddled in groups, and clubbed at them, 
and fell back for space, and ultimately crashed upon their 
betraying brothers in arms, swinging rifles and flying. 
The Austro-Italians rang out a Viva for Italy, and let 
them fly: they were swept from the scene. 

Yittoria heard her lover addressing his followers. Then 
he and Angelo stood over Count Karl, whom she had for- 
gotten. Angelo ran up to her, but gave place the moment 
Carlo came; and Carlo drew her by the hand swiftly to an 
obscure bend of the rolling ground, and stuck his sword in 
the earth, and there put his arms round her and held her 
fast. 

“Obey me now,” were his first words. 

“Yes,” she answered. 

He was harsh of eye and tongue, not like the gentle youth 
she had been torn from at the door of La Scala. 

“Return; make your way to Brescia. My mother is in 
Brescia. Milan is hateful. I throw myself into Vicenza. 
Can I trust you to obey?” 

“Carlo, what evil have you heard of me?” 

“I listen to no tales.” 

“ Let me follow you to Vicenza and be your handmaid, 
my beloved.” 


368 


VITTORIA 


“Say that yon obey.” 

“I have said it.” 

He seemed to shut her in his heart, so closely was she 
enfolded. 

“Since La Scala,” she murmured; and he bent his lips 
to her ear, whispering, “ Hot one thought of another woman! 
and never till I die.” 

“ And I only of you, Carlo, and for you, my lover, my 
lover ! ” 

“You love me absolutely?” 

“I belong to you.” 

“ I could be a coward and pray for life to live to hear 
you say it.” 

“ I feel I breathe another life when you are away from 
me.” 

“You belong to me; you are my own?” 

“You take my voice, beloved.” 

“And when I claim you, I am to have you?” 

“Am I not in your hands? ” 

“The very instant I make my claim you will say yes?” 

“I shall not have strength for more than to nod.” 

Carlo shuddered at the delicious image of her weakness. 

“My Sandra! Yittoria, my soul! my bride! ” 

“0 my Carlo! Do you go to Vicenza? And did you 
know I was among these people?” 

“You will hear everything from little Leone Eufo, who 
is wounded and accompanies you to Brescia. Speak of 
nothing. Speak my name, and look at me. I deserve two 
minutes of blessedness.” 

“ Ah, my dearest, if I am sweet to you, you might have 
many ! ” 

“Ho; they begin to hum a reproach at me already, for I 
must be marching. Vicenza will soon bubble on a fire, I 
suspect. Comfort my mother; she wants a young heart at 
her elbow. If she is alone, she feeds on every rumour; 
other women scatter in emotions what poisons her. And 
when my bride is with her, I am between them.” 

“Yes, Carlo, I will go,” said Vittoria, seeing her duty at 
last through tenderness. 

Carlo sprang from her side to meet Angelo, with whom 
he exchanged some quick words. The bugle was sounding, 


COUNT KARL LENKENSTEIN, ETC. 


369 


and Barto Rizzo audible. Luigi came to her, ruefully 
announcing that the volunteers had sacked the carriage — 
behaved worse than the Austrians ; and that his padrone, 
the signor Antonio-Pericles, was off like a gossamer. 
Angelo induced her to remain on the spot where she stood 
till the carriage was seen on the Schio road, when he led 
her to it, saying that Carlo had serious work to do. Count 
Karl Lenkenstein was lying in the carriage, supported by 
Wilfrid and by young Leone Rufo, who sat laughing, with 
one eye under a cross-bandage and an arm slung in a hand - 
kerchief. Vittoria desired to wait that she might see her 
lover once more ; but Angelo entreated her that she should 
depart, too earnestly to leave her in doubt of there being 
good reason for it and for her lover’s absence. He pointed 
to Wilfrid: “Barto Rizzo captured this man; Carlo has 
released him. Take him with you to attend on his superior 
officer.” She drew Angelo’s observation to the first morn- 
ing colours over the peaks. He looked up, and she knew 
that he remembered that morning of their flight from the 
inn. Perhaps he then had the image of his brother in his 
mind, for the colours seemed to be plucking at his heart, 
and he said, “I have lost him.” 

“ God help you, my friend ! ” said Vittoria, her throat 
choking. 

Angelo pointed at the insensible nobleman: “These live. 
I do not grudge him his breath or his chances; but why 
should these men take so much killing? Weisspriess has 
risen, as though I struck the blow of a babe. But we — 
one shot does for us! Nevertheless, signorina,” Angelo 
smiled firmly, “I complain of nothing while we march 
forward.” 

He kissed his hand to her, and turned back to his troop. 
The carriage was soon under the shadows of the mountains. 


370 


VITTORIA 


CHAPTER XXXIV 

EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR 
THE DEEDS OF BARTO RIZZO — THE MEETING AT ROYEREDO 

At Schio there was no medical attendance to be obtained 
for Count Karl, and he begged so piteously to be taken on 
to Roveredo, that, on his promising to give Leone Rufo a 
pass, Vittoria decided to work her way round to Brescia by 
the Alpine route. She supposed Pericles to have gone off 
among the Tyrolese, and wished in her heart that Wilfrid 
had gone likewise, for he continued to wear that look of 
sad stupefaction which was the harshest reproach to her. 
Leone was unconquerably gay in spite of his wounds. He 
narrated the doings of the volunteers, with proud eulogies 
of Carlo Ammiani’s gallant leadership; but the devices of 
Barto Rizzo appeared to have struck his imagination most. 
“He is positively a cat — a great cat,” Leone said. “He 
can run a day; he can fast a week; he can climb a house; 
he can drop from a crag; and he never lets go his hold. 
If he says a thing to his wife, she goes true as a bullet to 
the mark. The two make a complete piece of artillery. 
We are all for Barto, though our captain Carlo is often 
enraged with him. But there’s no getting on without him. 
We have found that.” 

Rinaldo and Angelo Guidascarpi and Barto Rizzo had 
done many daring feats. They had first, heading about a 
couple of dozen out of a force of sixty, endeavoured to sur- 
prise the fortress Rocca d’Anfo in Lake Idro — an insane 
enterprise that touched on success, and would have been 
an achievement had all the men who followed them been 
made of the same desperate stuff. Beaten off, they escaped 
up the Val di Ledro, and secretly entered Trent, where 
they hoped to spread revolt, but the Austrian commandant 
knew what a quantity of dry wood was in the city, and 
stamped his heel on sparks. A revolt was prepared not- 
withstanding the proclamation of imprisonment and death. 
Barto undertook to lead a troop against the Buon Consiglio 


THE DEEDS OF BARTO RIZZO, ETC. 


3T1 


barracks, while Angelo and Rinaldo cleared the ramparts. 
It chanced, whether from treachery or extra-vigilance was 
unknown, that the troops paid domiciliary visits an hour 
before the intended outbreak, and the three were left to 
accomplish their task alone. They remained in the city 
several days, hunted from house to house, and finally they 
were brought to bay at night on the roof of a palace where 
the Lenkenstein ladies were residing. Barto took his 
dagger between his teeth and dropped to the balcony of 
Lena’s chamber. The brothers soon after found the roof- 
trap opened to them, and Lena and Anna conducted them 
to the postern-door. There Angelo asked whom they had 
to thank. The terrified ladies gave their name; upon 
hearing which, Rinaldo turned and said that he would pay 
for a charitable deed to the extent of his power, and would 
not meanly allow them to befriend persons who were to con- 
tinue strangers to them. He gave the name of Guida- 
scarpi, and relieved his brother, as well as himself, of a 
load of obligation, for the ladies raised wild screams on 
the instant. In falling from the walls to the road, Ri- 
naldo hurt his foot. Barto lifted him on his back, and jour- 
neyed with him so till at the appointed place he met his 
wife, who dressed the foot, and led them out of the line of 
pursuit, herself bending under the beloved load. Her 
adoration of Rinaldo was deep as a mother’s, pure as a 
virgin’s, fiery as a saint’s. Leone Rufo dwelt on it the 
more fervidly from seeing Yittoria’s expression of astonish- 
ment. The woman led them to a cave in the rocks, where 
she had stored provision and sat two days expecting the 
signal from Trent. They saw numerous bands of soldiers 
set out along the valleys — merry men whom it was Barto’s 
pleasure to beguile by shouts, as a relief for his parched 
weariness upon the baking rock. Accident made it an 
indiscretion. A glass was levelled at them by a mounted 
officer, and they had quickly to be moving. Angelo knew 
the voice of Weisspriess in the word of command to the 
soldiers, and the call to him to surrender. Weisspriess 
followed them across the mountain track, keeping at their 
heels, though they doubled and adopted all possible contri- 
vances to shake him off. He was joined by Count Karl 
Lenkenstein on the day when Carlo Ammiani encountered 


872 


VITTORIA 


them, with the rear of Colonel Corte’s band marching for 
Vicenza. In the collision between the Austrians and the 
volunteers, Einaldo was taken fighting upon his knee-cap. 
Leone cursed the disabled foot which had carried the hero 
in action, to cast him at the mercy of his enemies; but 
recollection of that sight of Einaldo fighting far ahead and 
alone, half-down like a scuttled ship, stood like a flower in 
the lad’s memory. The volunteers devoted themselves to 
liberate or avenge him. It was then that Barto Eizzo sent 
his wife upon her mission. Leone assured Vittoria that 
Angelo was aware of its nature, and approved it — hoped 
that the same might be done for himself. He shook his 
head when she asked if Count Ammiani approved it like- 
wise. 

“ Signorina, Count Ammiani has a grudge against Barto, 
though he can’t help making use of him. Our captain 
Carlo is too much of a mere soldier. He would have allowed 
Einaldo to be strung up, and Barto does not owe him obe- 
dience in those things.” 

“ But why did this Barto Eizzo employ a woman’s hand? ” 

“The woman was capable. No man could have got per- 
mission to move freely among the rascal Austrians, even in 
the character of a deserter. She did, and she saved him 
from the shame of execution. And besides, it was her 
punishment. You are astonished? Barto Eizzo punishes 
royally. He never forgives, and he never persecutes; he 
waits for his opportunity. That woman disobeyed him 
once — once only; but once was enough. It occurred in 
Milan, I believe. She released an Austrian, or did some- 
thing — I don’t know the story exactly — and Barto said to 
her, ‘Now you can wash out your crime and send your boy 
to heaven unspotted, with one blow.’ I saw her set out to 
do it. She was all teeth and eyes, like a frightened horse; 
she walked like a Muse in a garden.” 

Vittoria discovered that her presence among the Austri- 
ans had been known to Carlo. Leone alluded slightly to 
Barto Eizzo’s confirmed suspicion of her, saying that it was 
his weakness to be suspicious of women. The volunteers, 
however, were all in her favour, and had jeered at Barto 
on his declaring that she might, in proof of her willingness 
to serve the cause, have used her voice for the purpose of 


THE DEEDS OF BARTO RIZZO, ETC. 373 

subjugating the wavering Austro-Italians, who wanted as 
much coaxing as women. Count Karl had been struck to 
earth by Barto Rizzo. “ Not with his boasted neatness, I 
imagine,” Leone said. In fact, the dagger had grazed an 
ivory portrait of a fair Italian head wreathed with violets 
in Count Karl's breast. 

Yittoria recognized the features of Violetta d'Isorella as 
the original of the portrait. 

They arrived at Roveredo late in the evening. The 
wounded man again entreated Yittoria to remain by him 
till a messenger should bring one of his sisters from Trent. 
“ See, ” she said to Leone, “ how I give grounds for suspicion 
of me; I nurse an enemy.” 

“ Here is a case where Barto is distinctly to blame, ” the 
lad replied. “ The poor fellow must want nursing, for he 
can't smoke.” 

Anna von Lenkenstein came from Trent to her brother's 
summons. Yittoria was by his bedside, and the sufferer 
had fallen asleep with his head upon her arm. Anna looked 
upon this scene with more hateful amazement than her dull 
eyelids could express. She beckoned imperiously for her 
to come away, but Yittoria would not allow him to be dis- 
turbed, and Anna sat and faced her. The sleep was long. 
The eyes of the two women met from time to time, and 
Vittoria thought that Barto Rizzo's wife, though more ter- 
rible, was pleasanter to behold, and less brutal, than Anna. 
The moment her brother stirred, Anna repeated her impe- 
rious gesture, murmuring, “Away! out of my sight!” 
With great delicacy of touch she drew the arm from the 
pillow and thrust it back, and then motioning in an undis- 
guised horror, said, “Go.” Yittoria rose to go. 

“ Is it my Lena? ” came from Karl's faint lips. 

“It is your Anna.” 

“I should have known,” he moaned. 

Yittoria left them. 

Some hours later, Countess Lena appeared, bringing a 
Trentino doctor. She said when she beheld Yittoria, “Are 
you our evil genius, then?” Vittoria felt that she must 
necessarily wear that aspect to them. 

Still greater was Lena's amazement when she looked on 
Wilfrid. She passed him without a sign. 


874 


YITTORIA 


Yittoria had to submit to an interview with both sisters 
before her departure. Apart from her distress on their 
behalf, they had always seemed as very weak, flippant 
young women to her, and she could have smiled in her 
heart when Anna pointed to a day of retribution in the 
future. 

“I shall not seek to have you assassinated,” Anna said; 
“ do not suppose that I mean the knife or the pistol. But 
your day will come, and I can wait for it. You murdered 
my brother Paul: you have tried to murder my brother 
Karl. I wish you to leave this place convinced of one 
thing: — you shall be repaid for it.” 

There was no direct allusion either to Weisspriess or to 
Wilfrid. 

Lena spoke of the army. “You think our cause is ruined 
because we have insurrection on all sides of us : you do not 
know our army. We can fight the Hungarians with one 
hand, and you Italians with the other — with a little finger. 
On what spot have we given way? We have to weep, it is 
true ; but tears do not testify to defeat ; and already I am 
inclined to pity those fools who have taken part against us. 
Some have experienced the fruits of their folly.” 

This was the nearest approach to a hint at Wilfrid’s mis- 
conduct. 

Lena handed Leone’s pass to Yittoria, and drawing out a 
little pocket almanac, said, “You proceed to Milan, I pre- 
sume. I do not love your society, mademoiselle Belloni — 
or Campa : yet I do not mind making an appointment — the 
doctor says a month will set my brother on his feet again, 
— I will make an appointment to meet you in Milan or 
Como, or anywhere in your present territories, during the 
month of August. That affords time for a short siege and 
two pitched battles.” 

She appeared to be expecting a retort. 

Yittoria replied, “I could beg one thing on my knees of 
you, Countess Lena.” 

“And that is ?” Lena threw her head up superbly. 

“Pardon my old friend the service he did me through 
friendship.” 

The sisters interchanged looks. Lena flushed angrily. 

Anna said, “The person to whom you allude is here.” 


THE DEEDS OF BARTO RIZZO, ETC. 


375 


“He is attending on your brother.” 

“Did he help this last assassin to escape, perchance?” 

Yittoria sickened at the cruel irony, and felt that she had 
perhaps done ill in beginning to plead for Wilfrid. 

“He is here; let him speak for himself: but listen to 
him, Countess Lena.” 

“A dishonourable man had better be dumb,” interposed 
Anna. 

“Ah! it is I who have offended you.” 

“Is that his excuse?” 

Yittoria kept her eyes on the fiercer sister, who now de- 
clined to speak. 

“I will not excuse my own deeds; perhaps I cannot. 
We Italians are in a hurricane; I cannot reflect. It may 
be that I do not act more thinkingly than a wild beast.” 

“You have spoken it,” Anna exclaimed. 

“Countess Lena, he fights in your ranks as a common 
soldier. He encounters more than a common soldier’s 
risks.” 

“The man is brave, — we knew that,” said Anna. 

“He is more than brave, he is devoted. He fights 
against us, without hope of reward from you. Have I 
utterly ruined him?” 

“I imagine that you may regard it as a fact that you 
have utterly ruined him,” said Anna, moving to break up 
the parting interview. Lena turned to follow her. 

“ Ladies, if it is I who have hardened your hearts, I am 
more guilty than I thought.” Yittoria said no more. She 
knew that she had been speaking badly, or ineffectually, by 
a haunting flatness of sound, as of an unstrung instrument, 
in her ears : she was herself unstrung and dispirited, while 
the recollection of Anna’s voice was like a sombre con- 
quering monotony on a low chord, with which she felt 
insufficient to compete. 

Leone was waiting in the carriage to drive to the ferry 
across the Adige. There was news in Roveredo of the 
king’s advance upon Rivoli; and Leone sat trying to lift 
and straighten out his wounded arm, with grimaces of 
laughter at the pain of the effort, which resolutely refused 
to acknowledge him to be an able combatant. At the car- 
riage-door Wilfrid bowed once over Yittoria’s hand. 


376 


YITTORIA 


“You see that,” Anna remarked to her sister. 

“I should have despised him if he had acted indiffer- 
ence,” replied Lena. 

She would have suspected him — that was what her heart 
meant; the artful show of indifference had deceived her 
once. The anger within her drew its springs much more 
fully from his refusal to respond to her affection, when she 
had in a fit of feminine weakness abased herself before him 
on the night of the Milanese revolt, than from the recollec- 
tion of their days together in Meran. She had nothing of 
her sister’s unforgivingness. And she was besides keenly 
curious to discover the nature of the charm Yittoria threw 
on him, and not on him solely. Yittoria left Wilfrid to 
better chances than she supposed. “ Continue fighting with 
your army,” she said, when they parted. The deeper shade 
which traversed his features told her that, if she pleased, 
her sway might still be active ; but she had no emotion to 
spare for sentimental regrets. She asked herself whether 
a woman who has cast her lot in scenes of strife does not 
lose much of her womanhood and something of her truth; 
and while her imagination remained depressed, her answer 
was sad. In that mood she pitied Wilfrid with a reckless 
sense of her inability to repay him for the harm she had 
done him. The tragedies written in fresh blood all about 
her, together with that ever-present image of the fate of 
Italy hanging in the balance, drew her away from personal 
reflections. She felt as one in a war-chariot, who has not 
time to cast more than a glance on the fallen. At the place 
where the ferry is, she was rejoiced by hearing positive 
news of the proximity of the Royal army. There were 
none to tell her that Charles Albert had here made his 
worst move by leaving Yicenza to the operations of the 
enemy, that he might become master of a point worthless 
when Yicenza fell into the enemy’s hands. The old Aus- 
trian Field-Marshal had eluded him at Mantua on that very 
night when Yittoria had seen his troops in motion. The 
daring Austrian flank-march on Yicenza, behind the for- 
tresses of the Quadrilateral, was the capital stroke of the 
campaign. But the presence of a Piedmontese vanguard at 
Rivoli flushed the Adige with confidence, and Yittoria went 
on her way sharing the people’s delight. She reached 


CLOSE OF THE LOMBARD CAMPAIGN, ETC. 377 


Brescia to hear that Vicenza had fallen. The city was like 
a landscape smitten black by the thunder-cloud. Vittoria 
found Countess Ammiani at her husband’s tomb, stiff, 
colourless, lifeless as a monument attached to the tomb. 


CHAPTER XXXV 

CLOSE OF THE LOMBARD CAMPAIGN — VITTORIA’s 
PERPLEXITY 

The fall of Vicenza turned a tide that had overflowed its 
barriers with force enough to roll it to the Adriatic. From 
that day it was as if a violent wind blew East over Lom- 
bardy ; flood and wind breaking here and there a tree, bow- 
ing everything before them. City, fortress, and battle-field 
resisted as the eddy whirls. Venice kept her brave colours 
streaming aloft in a mighty grasp despite the storm, but 
between Venice and Milan there was this unutterable 
devastation, — so sudden a change, so complete a reversal 
of the shield, that the Lombards were at first incredulous 
even in their agony, and set their faces against it as at a 
monstrous eclipse, as though the heavens were taking false 
oath of its being night when it was day. From Vicenza 
and Rivoli, to Sommacampagna, and across Monte Godio 
to Custozza, to Volta on the right of the Mincio, up to the 
gates of Milan, the line of fire travelled, with a fantastic 
overbearing swiftness that, upon the map, looks like the 
zig-zag elbowing of a field-rocket. Vicenza fell on the 11th 
of June; the Austrians entered Milan on the 6th of August. 
Within that short time the Lombards were struck to the 
dust. 

Countess Ammiani quitted Brescia for Bergamo before the 
worst had happened; when nothing but the king’s retreat 
upon the Lombard capital, after the good fight at Volta, 
was known. According to the king’s proclamation the 
Piedmontese army was to defend Milan, and hope was not 
dead. Vittoria succeeded in repressing all useless signs 
of grief in the presence of the venerable lady, who herself 


378 


VITTORIA 


showed none, but simply recommended her accepted daugh- 
ter to pray daily. “I can neither confess nor pray,” Vit- 
toria said to the priest, a comfortable, irritable ecclesiastic, 
long attached to the family, and little able to deal with 
this rebel before Providence, that would not let her swollen 
spirit be bled. Yet she admitted to him that the countess 
possessed resources which she could find nowhere; and she 
saw the full beauty of such inimitable grave endurance. 
Vittoria’s foolish trick of thinking for herself made her 
believe, nevertheless, that the countess suffered more than 
she betrayed, was less consoled than her spiritual comforter 
imagined. She continued obstinate and unrepentant, say- 
ing, “ If my punishment is to come, it will at least bring 
experience with it, and I shall know why I am punished. 
The misery now is that I do not know, and do not see, the 
justice of the sentence.” 

Countess Ammiani thought better of her case than the 
priest did; or she was more indulgent, or half indifferent. 
This girl was Carlo’s choice; — a strange choice, but the 
times were strange, and the girl was robust. The channels 
of her own and her husband’s house were drying on all 
sides; the house wanted resuscitating. There was prom- 
ise that the girl would bear children of strong blood. 
Countess Ammiani would not for one moment have allowed 
the spiritual welfare of the children to hang in dubitation, 
awaiting their experience of life ; but a certain satisfaction 
was shown in her faint smile when her confessor lamented 
over Vittoria’s proud stony state of moral revolt. She said 
to her accepted daughter, “I shall expect you to be pre- 
pared to espouse my son as soon as I have him by my side ; ” 
nor did Vittoria’s silent bowing of her face assure her that 
strict obedience was implied. Precise words — “I will,” 
and “I will not fail” — were exacted. The countess 
showed some emotion after Vittoria had spoken. “Now, 
may God end this war quickly, if it is to go against us,” 
she exclaimed, trembling in her chair visibly a half-minute, 
with dropped eyelids and lips moving. 

Carlo had sent word that he would join his mother as 
early as he was disengaged from active service, and mean- 
time requested her to proceed to a villa on Lago Maggiore. 
Vittoria obtained permission from the countess to order the 


CLOSE OF THE LOMBARD CAMPAIGN, ETC. 3T9 

route of the carriage through Milan, where she wished to 
take up her mother and her maid Giacinta. Tor other 
reasons she would have avoided the city. The thought of 
entering it was painful with the shrewdest pain. Dante’s 
profoundly human line seemed branded on the forehead of 
Milan. 

The morning was dark when they drove through the 
streets of Bergamo. Passing one of the open places, Yit- 
toria beheld a great concourse of volunteer youth and citi- 
zens, all of them listening to the voice of one who stood a 
few steps above them holding a banner. She gave an out- 
cry of bitter joy. It was the Chief. On one side of him 
was Agostino, in the midst of memorable heads that were 
unknown to her. The countess refused to stay, though 
Yittoria strained her hands together in extreme entreaty 
that she might for a few moments hear what the others 
were hearing. “I speak for my son, and I forbid it,” 
Countess Ammiani said. Yittoria fell back and closed her 
eyes to cherish the vision. All those faces raised to the 
one speaker under the dark sky were beautiful. He had 
breathed some new glory of hope in them, making them 
shine beneath the overcast heavens, as when the sun breaks 
from an evening cloud and flushes the stems of a company 
of pine-trees. 

Along the road to Milan she kept imagining his utter- 
ance until her heart rose with music. A delicious stream 
of music, thin as poor tears, passed through her frame, 
like a life reviving. She reached Milan in a mood to bear 
the idea of temporary defeat. Music had forsaken her so 
long that celestial reassurance seemed to return with it. 

Her mother was at Zotti’s, very querulous, but deter- 
mined not to leave the house and the few people she knew. 
She had, as she told her daughter, fretted so much on her 
account that she hardly knew whether she was glad to see 
her. Tea, of course, she had given up all thoughts of; but 
now coffee was rising, and the boasted sweet bread of Lom- 
bardy was something to look at! She trusted that Emilia 
would soon think of singing no more, and letting people 
rest: she might sing when she wanted money. A letter 
recently received from Mr. Pericles said that Italy was her 
child’s ruin, and she hoped Emilia was ready to do as he 


380 


VITTORIA 


advised, and hurry to England, where singing did not upset 

people, and people lived like real Christians, not Yit- 

toria flapped her hand, and would not hear of the unchris- 
tian crimes of the South. As regarded the expected 
defence of Milan, the little woman said, that if it brought 
on a bombardment, she would call it unpardonable wicked- 
ness, and only hoped that her daughter would repent. 

Zotti stood by, interpreting the English to himself by 
tones. “The amiable donnina is not of our persuasion/’ 
he observed. “She remains dissatisfied with patriotic 
Milan. I have exhibited to her my dabs of bread through 
all the processes of making and baking. It is in vain. 
She rejects analogy. She is wilful as a principessina : — 
’ Tis so ! ’ tis not so ! ’ tis my will ! be silent, thou! Signora, 
I have been treated in that way by your excellent mother. ” 

“ Zotti has not been paid for three weeks, and he certainly 
has not mentioned it or looked it, I will say, Emilia.” 

“Zotti has had something to think of during the last 
three weeks,” said Yittoria, touching him kindly on the 
arm. 

The confectioner lifted his fingers and his big brown eyes 
after them, expressive of the unutterable thoughts. He 
informed her that he had laid in a stock of flour, in the 
expectation that Carlo Alberto would defend the city. 
The Milanese were ready to aid him, though some, as Zotti 
confessed, had ceased to effervesce; and a great number 
who were perfectly ready to fight regarded his tardy appeal 
to Italian patriotism very coldly. Zotti set out in person 
to discover Giacinta. The girl could hardly fetch her 
breath when she saw her mistress. She was in Laura’s 
service, and said that Laura had brought a wounded Eng- 
lishman from the field of Custozza. Vittoria hurried to 
Laura, with whom she found Merthyr, blue-white as a 
corpse, having been shot through the body. His sister was 
in one of the Lombard hamlets, unaware of his fall; Beppo 
had been sent to her. 

They noticed one another’s embrowned complexions, but 
embraced silently. “ Twice widowed ! ” Laura said when 
they sat together. Laura hushed all speaking of the war or 
allusion to a single incident of the miserable campaign, 
beyond the bare recital of Yittoria’s adventures ; yet when 


CLOSE OF THE LOMBARD CAMPAIGN, ETC. 381 

Vicenza by chance was mentioned, she burst out : “ They are 
not cities, they are living shrieks. They have been made 
impious for ever. Burn them to ashes, that they may not 
breathe foul upon heaven ! ” She had clung to the skirts of 
the army as far as the field of Custozza. “ He,” she said, 
pointing to the room where Merthyr lay, — “he groans 
less than the others I have nursed. Generally, when they 
looked at me, they appeared obliged to recollect that it was 
not I who had hurt them. Poor souls ! some ended in great 
torment. I think of them as the happiest; for pain is a 
cloak that wraps you about, and I remember one middle-aged 
man who died softly at Custozza, and said, ‘ Beaten ! ’ To 
take that thought as your travelling companion into the gulf, 
must be worse than dying of agony ; at least, I think so.” 

Vittoria was too well used to Laura’s way of meeting dis- 
aster to expect from her other than this ironical fortitude, in 
which the fortitude leaned so much upon the irony. What 
really astonished her was the conception Laura had taken of 
the might of Austria. Laura did not directly speak of it, 
but shadowed it in allusive hints, much as if she had in her 
mind the image of an iron roller going over a field of flowers 
— hateful, imminent, irresistible. She felt as a leaf that has 
been flying before the gale. 

Merthyr’s wound was severe. Vittoria could not leave 
him. Her resolution to stay in Milan brought her into 
collision with Countess Ammiani, when the countess reminded 
her of her promise, sedately informing her that she was no 
longer her own mistress, and had a primary duty to fulfil. 
She offered to wait three days, or until the safety of the 
wounded man was medically certified to. It was incompre- 
hensible to her that Vittoria should reject her terms ; and 
though it was true that she would not have listened to a 
reason, she was indignant at not hearing one given in 
mitigation of the offence. She set out alone on her journey, 
deeply hurt. The reason was a feminine sentiment, and 
Vittoria was naturally unable to speak it. She shrank with 
pathetic horror from the thought of Merthyr’s rising from 
his couch to find her a married woman, and desired most 
earnestly that her marriage should be witnessed by him. 
Young women will know how to reconcile the opposition of 
the sentiment. Had Merthyr been only slightly wounded, 


382 


VITTORIA 


and sound enough to seem to be able to bear a bitter shock, 
she would not have allowed her personal feelings to cause 
chagrin to the noble lady. The sight of her dear steadfast 
friend prostrate in the cause of Italy, and who, if he lived to 
rise again, might not have his natural strength to bear the 
thought of her loss with his old brave firmness, made it 
impossible for her to act decisively in one direct line of 
conduct. 

Countess Ammiani wrote brief letters from Luino and 
Pallanza on Lago Maggiore. She said that Carlo was in the 
Como mountains ; he would expect to find his bride, and 
would accuse his mother ; “ but his mother will be spared 
those reproaches,” she added, “ if the last shot fired kills, as 
it generally does, the bravest and the dearest.” 

“ If it should ! ” — the thought rose on a quick breath in 
Vittoria’s bosom, and the sentiment which held her away 
dispersed like a feeble smoke, and showed her another view 
of her features. She wept with longing for love and depend- 
ence. She was sick of personal freedom, tired of the exer- 
cise of her will, only too eager to give herself to her beloved. 
The blessedness of marriage, of peace and dependence, came 
on her imagination like a soft breeze from a hidden garden, 
like sleep. But this very longing created the resistance to 
it in the depths of her soul. There was a light as of reviving 
life, or of pain comforted, when it was she who was sitting 
by Merthyr’s side, and when at times she saw the hopeless 
effort of his hand to reach to hers, or during the long still 
hours she laid her head on his pillow, and knew that he 
breathed gratefully. The sweetness of helping him, and of 
making his breathing pleasant to him, closed much of the 
world which lay beyond her windows to her thoughts, and 
surprised her with an unknown emotion, so strange to her 
that when it first swept up her veins she had the fancy of 
her having been touched by a supernatural hand, and heard 
a flying accord of instruments. She was praying before she 
knew what prayer was. A crucifix hung over Merthyr’s 
head. She had looked on it many times, and looked on it 
still, without seeing more than the old sorrow. In the night 
it was dim. She found herself trying to read the features 
of the thorn-crowned Head in the solitary night. She and 
it were alone with a life that was faint above the engulphing 


CLOSE OF THE LOMBARD CAMPAIGN, ETC. 383 


darkness. She prayed for the life, and trembled, and shed 
tears, and would have checked them ; they seemed to be 
bearing away her little remaining strength. The tears 
streamed. No answer was given to her question, “Why do 
I weep ? ” She wept when Merthyr had passed the danger, 
as she had wept when the hours went by with shrouded 
visages ; and though she felt the difference in the springs of 
her tears, she thought them but a simple form of weakness 
showing shade and light. 

These tears were a vanward wave of the sea to follow ; 
the rising of her voice to heaven was no more than a twitter 
of the earliest dawn before the coming of her soul’s outcry. 

“ I have had a weeping fit,” she thought, and resolved to 
remember it tenderly, as being associated with her friend’s 
recovery, and a singular masterful power absolutely to look 
on the Austrians marching up the streets of Milan, and not 
to feel the surging hatred, or the nerveless despair, which 
she had supposed must be her alternatives. 

It is a mean image to say that the entry of the Austrians 
into the reconquered city was like a river of oil permeating 
a lake of vinegar, but it presents the fact in every sense. 
They demanded nothing more than submission, and placed a 
gentle foot upon the fallen enemy ; and wherever they ap- 
peared they were isolated. The deepest wrath of the city 
was, nevertheless, not directed against them, but against 
Carlo Alberto, who had pledged his honour to defend it, and 
had forsaken it. Vittoria committed a public indiscretion 
on the day when the king left Milan to its fate: word 
whereof was conveyed to Carlo Ammiani, and he wrote to 
her. 

“It is right that I should tell you what I have heard,” 
the letter said. “ I have heard that my bride drove up to the 
crowned traitor, after he had unmasked himself, and when 
he was quitting the G-reppi palace, and that she kissed his 
hand before the people — poor bleeding people of Milan! 
This is what I hear in the Yal d’lntelvi : — that she despised 
the misery and just anger of the people, and, by virtue of 
her name and mine, obtained a way for him. How can she 
have acted so as to give a colour to this infamous scandal ? 
True or false, it does not affect my love for her. Still, my 
dearest, what shall I say ? You keep me divided in two 


384 


VITTORIA 


halves. My heart is out of me ; and if I had a will, I think 
I should be harsh with you. You are absent from my 
mother at a time when we are about to strike another blow. 
Go to her. It is kindness ; it is charity : I do not say duty. 
I remember that I did write harshly to you from Brescia. 
Then our march was so clear in view that a little thing 
ruffled me. Was it a little thing? But to applaud the 
Traitor now! To uphold him who has spilt our blood 
only to hand the country over to the old gaolers! He 
lent us his army like a Jew, for huge interest. Can you 
not read him? If not, cease, I implore you, to think at 
all for yourself. 

“ Is this a lover’s letter ? I know that my beloved will 
see the love in it. To me your acts are fair and good as the 
chronicle of a saint. I find you creating suspicion — almost 
justifying it in others, and putting your name in the mouth 
of a madman who denounces you. I shall not speak more 
of him. Remember that my faith in you is unchangeable, 
and I pray you to have the same in me. 

“ I sent you a greeting from the Chief. He marched in 
the ranks from Bergamo. I saw him on the line of march 
strip off his coat to shelter a young lad from the heavy rain. 
He is not discouraged ; none are who have been near him. 

“ Angelo is here, and so is our Agostino ; and I assure you 
he loads and fires a carbine much more deliberately than he 
composes a sonnet. I am afraid that your adored Antonio- 
Pericles fared badly among our fellows, but I could gather 
no particulars. 

“ Oh ! the bright two minutes when I held you right in 
my heart. That spot on the Vicentino is alone unclouded. 
If I live I will have that bit of ground. I will make a 
temple of it. I could reach it blindfolded.” 

A townsman of Milan brought this letter to Vittoria. She 
despatched Luigi with her reply, which met the charge in a 
straightforward affirmative. 

“ I was driving to Zotti’s by the Greppi palace, when I 
saw the king come forth, and the people hooted him. I 
stood up, and petitioned to kiss his hand. The people knew 
me. They did not hoot any more for some time. 

“ So that you have heard the truth, and you must judge 
me by it. I cannot even add that I am sorry, though I strive 


CLOSE OF THE LOMBARD CAMPAIGN, ETC. 385 


to wish, that I had not been present. I might wish it really, 
if I did not feel it to be a cowardly wish. 

“ Oh, my Carlo ! my lover ! my husband ! you would not 
have me go against my nature ? I have seen the king upon 
the battle-field. He has deigned to speak to me of Italy 
and our freedom. I have seen him facing our enemy ; and 
to see him hooted by the people, and in misfortune and with 
sad eyes ! — he looked sad and nothing else — and besides, I 
am sure I know the king. I mean that I understand him. 
I am half ashamed to write so boldly, even to you. I say 
to myself you should know me, at least ; and if I am guilty 
of a piece of vanity, you should know that also. Carlo Al- 
berto is quite unlike other men. He worships success as 
much ; but they are not, as he is, so much bettered by adver- 
sity. Indeed I do not believe that he has exact intentions of 
any sort, or ever had the intention to betray us, or has done 
so in reality, that is, meaningly, of his own will. Count 
Medole and his party did, as you know, offer Lombardy to 
him, and Venice gave herself — brave, noble Venice! Oh! 
if we two were there — Venice has England’s sea-spirit. But 
did we not flatter the king ? And ask yourself, my Carlo, 
could a king move in such an enterprise as a common person ? 
Ought we not to be in union with Sardinia ? How can we be 
if we reject her king ? Is it not the only positive army that 
we can look to — I mean regular army ? Should we not 
make some excuses for one who is not in our position ? 

“ I feel that I push my questions like waves that fall and 
cannot get beyond — they crave so for answers agreeing to 
them. This should make me doubt myself, perhaps ; but 
they crowd again, and seem so conclusive until I have 
written them down. I am unworthy to struggle with your 
intellect ; but I say to myself, how unworthy of you I should 
be if I did not use my own, such as it is ! The poor king 
had to conclude an armistice to save his little kingdom. 
Perhaps we ought to think of that sternly. My heart is 
filled with pity. 

“ It cannot but be right that you should know the worst 
of me. I call you my husband, and tremble to be permitted 
to lean my head on your bosom for hours, my sweet lover ! 
And yet my cowardice, if I had let the king go by without a 
reverential greeting from me, in his adversity, would have 


386 


VITTORIA 


rendered me insufferable to myself. You are hearing me, 
and I am compelled to say, that rather than behave so 
basely I would forfeit your love, and be widowed till death 
should offer us for God to join us. Does your face change 
to me ? 

“ Dearest, and I say it when the thought of you sets me 
almost swooning. I find my hands clasped, and I am mut- 
tering I know not what, and I am blushing. The ground 
seems to rock ; I can barely breathe ; my heart is like a bird 
caught in the hands of a cruel boy : it will not rest. I fear 
everything. I hear a whisper, ‘ Delay not an instant ! ’ and 
it is like a furnace ; e Hasten to Mm ! Speed ! ■ and I seem to 
totter forward and drop — I think I have lost you — I am 
like one dead. 

“I remain here to nurse our dear friend Merthyr. For 
that reason I am absent from your mother. It is her desire 
that we should be married. 

“ Soon, soon, my own soul ! 

“ I seem to be hanging on a tree for you, swayed by such 
a teazing wind. 

“ Oh, soon ! or I feel that I shall hate any vestige of will 
that I have in this head of mine. Hot in the heart — it is 
not there ! 

“ And sometimes I am burning to sing. The voice leaps 
to my lips ; it is quite like a thing that lives apart — my 
prisoner. 

“ It is true, Laura is here with Merthyr. 

“ Could you come at once ? — not here, but to Pallanza ? 
We shall both make our mother happy. This she wishes, 
this she lives for, this consoles her — and oh, this gives me 
peace ! Yes, Merthyr is recovering ! I can leave him with- 
out the dread I had ; and Laura confesses to the feminine 
sentiment, if her funny jealousy of a rival nurse is really 
simply feminine. She will be glad of our resolve, I am sure. 
And then you will order all my actions ; and I shall be cer- 
tain that they are such as I would proudly call mine ; and I 
shall be shut away from the world. Yes ; let it be so ! 
Addio. I reserve all sweet names for you. Addio. In 
Pallanza : — no not Pallanza — Paradise ! 

“ Hush ! and do not smile at me: — it was not my will, I 
discover, but my want of will, that distracted me. 


CLOSE OF THE LOMBARD CAMPAIGN, ETC. 387 


“ See my last signature of — not Yittoria ; for I inay sign 
that again and still be Emilia Alessandra Ammiani — 

“ Sandra Belloni.” 

The letter was sealed; Luigi bore it away, and a brief 
letter to Countess Ammiani, in Pallanza, as well. 

Yittoria was relieved of her anxiety concerning Merthyr by 
the arrival of Georgiana, who had been compelled to make 
her way round by Piacenza and Turin, where she had left 
Gambier, with Beppo in attendance on him. Georgiana at 
once assumed all the duties of head-nurse, and the more 
resolutely because of her brother’s evident moral weakness 
in sighing for the hand of a fickle girl to smooth his pillow. 
“ When he is stronger you can sit beside him a little,” she 
said to Yittoria, who surrendered her post without a struggle, 
and rarely saw him, though Laura told her that his frequent 
exclamation was her name, accompanied by a soft look at 
his sister — “ which would have stirred my heart like poor 
old Milan last March,” Laura added, with a lift of her 
shoulders. 

Georgiana’s icy manner appeared infinitely strange to 
Yittoria when she heard from Merthyr that his sister had 
become engaged to Captain Gambier. 

“ Nothing softens these women,” said Laura, putting 
Georgiana in a class. 

“ I wish you could try the effect of your winning Merthyr,” 
Yittoria suggested. 

“ I remember that when I went to my husband, I likewise 
wanted every woman of my acquaintance to be married.” 
Laura sighed deeply. “What is this poor withered body 
of mine now ? It feels like an old volcano, cindery, with 
fire somewhere: — a charming bride! My dear, if I live 
till my children make me a grandmother, I shall look on 
the love of men and women as a toy that I have played 
with. A new husband ? I must be dragged through the 
Circles of Dante before I can conceive it, and then I should 
loathe the stranger.” 

Hews came that the volunteers were crushed. It was 
time for Yittoria to start for Pallanza, and she thought of 
her leave-taking; a final leave-taking, in one sense, to the 
friends who had cared too much for her. Laura delicately 


388 


VITTORIA 


drew Georgiana aside in the sick-room, which she would not 
quit, and alluded to the necessity for Vittoria’s departure 
without stating exactly wherefore: but Georgiana was a 
Welshwoman. Partly to show her accurate power of guess- 
ing, and chiefly that she might reprove Laura’s insulting 
whisper, which outraged and irritated her as much as if 
“ Oh ! your poor brother ! ” had been exclaimed, she made 
display of Merthyr’s manly coldness by saying aloud, “ You 
mean, that she is going to her marriage.” Laura turned her 
face to Merthyr. He had striven to rise on his elbow, and 
had dropped flat in his helplessness. Big tears were rolling 
down his cheeks. His articulation failed him, beyond a 
reiterated “No, no,” pitiful to hear, and he broke into 
childish sobs. Georgiana hurried Laura from the room. 
By-and-by the doctor was promptly summoned, and it was 
Georgiana herself, miserably humbled, who obtained Vit- 
toria’s sworn consent to keep the life in Merthyr by linger- 
ing yet awhile. 

Meantime Luigi brought a letter from Pallanza in Carlo’s 
handwriting. This was the burden of it : — 

“ I am here, and you are absent. Hasten ! ” 


CHAPTER XXXYI 

A FRESH ENTANGLEMENT 

The Lenkenstein ladies returned to Milan proudly in the 
path of the army which they had followed along the city 
walls on the black March midnight. The ladies of the Aus- 
trian aristocracy generally had to be exiles from Vienna, and 
were glad to flock together even in an alien city. Anna and 
Lena were aware of Vittoria’s residence in Milan, through 
the interchange of visits between the Countess of Lenken- 
stein and her sister signora Piaveni. They heard also of 
Vittoria’s prospective and approaching marriage to Count 
Ammiani. The Duchess of Graatli, who had forborne a visit 
to her unhappy friends, lest her Austrian face should wound 


A FRESH ENTANGLEMENT 


889 


their sensitiveness, was in company with the Lenkensteins 
one day, when Irma di Karski called on them. Irma had 
come from Lago Maggiore, where she had left her patron, as 
she was pleased to term Antonio-Pericles. She was full of 
chatter of that most worthy man’s deplorable experiences of 
Vittoria’s behaviour to him during the war, and of many 
things besides. According to her account, Yittoria had en- 
ticed him from place to place with promises that the next 
day, and the next day, and the day after, she would be ready 
to keep her engagement to go to London, and at last she had 
given him the slip and left him to be plucked like a pullet by 
a horde of volunteer banditti, out of whose hands Antonio- 
Pericles — “ one of our richest millionaires in Europe, cer- 
tainly our richest amateur,” said Irma — escaped in fit 
outward condition for the garden of Eden. 

Count Karl was lying on the sofa, and went into endless 
invalid’s laughter at the picture presented by Irma of the 
‘ wild man ’ wanderings of poor infatuated Pericles, which 
was exaggerated, though not intentionally, for Irma repeated 
the words and gestures of Pericles in the recital of his tribu- 
lations. Being of a somewhat similar physical organization, 
she did it very laughably. Irma declared that Pericles was 
cured of his infatuation. He had got to Turin, intending to 
quit Italy for ever, when — “he met me,” said Irma modestly. 

“And heard that the war was at an end,” Count Karl 
added. 

“And he has taken the superb Villa Bicciardi, on Lago 
Maggiore, where he will have a troupe of singers, and per- 
form operas, in which I believe I may possibly act as prima 
donna. The truth is, I would do anything to prevent him 
from leaving the country.” 

But Irma had more to say ; with “ I bear no malice,” she 
commenced it. The story she had heard was that Count 
Am -mia.ni, after plighting himself to a certain signorina, 
known as Vittoria Campa, had received tidings that she was 
one of those persons who bring discredit on Irma’s profes- 
sion. “Gifted by nature, I can acknowledge,” said Irma; 
“ but devoured by vanity — a perfect slave to the appetite 
for praise; ready to forfeit anything for flattery! Poor 
signor Antonio-Pericles ! — he knows her.” And now Count 
Ammiani, persuaded to reason by his mother, had given her 


390 


VITTORIA 


up. There was nothing more positive, for Irma had seen 
him in the society of Countess Violetta d’lsorella. 

Anna and Lena glanced at their brother Karl. 

“I should not allude to what is not notorious,” Irma 
pursued. “They are always together. My dear Antonio- 
Pericles is most amusing in his expressions of delight at it. 
Tor my part, though she served me an evil turn once, — you 
will hardly believe, ladies, that in her jealousy of me she 
was guilty of the most shameful machinations to get me out 
of the way on the night of the first performance of Camilla , 
— but, for my part, I bear no malice. The creature is an 
inveterate rebel, and I dislike her for that, I do confess.” 

“ The signorina Vittoria Campa is my particular and very 
dear friend,” said the duchess. 

“ She is not the less an inveterate rebel,” said Anna. 

Count Karl gave a long-drawn sigh. “Alas, that she 
should have brought discredit on Traulein di Karski’s pro- 
fession ! ” 

The duchess hurried straightway to Laura, with whom 
was Count Serabiglione, reviewing the present posture of 
affairs from the condescending altitudes of one that has 
foretold it. Laura and Amalia embraced and went apart. 
During their absence Vittoria came down to the count and 
listened to a familiar illustration of his theory of the rela r 
tions which should exist between Italy and Austria, derived 
from the friendship of those two women. 

“ What I wish you to see, signorina, is that such an alli- 
ance is possible ; and, if we supply the brains, as we do, is 
by no means likely to be degrading. These bears are abso- 
lutely on their knees to us for good fellowship. You have 
influence, you have amazing wit, you have unparalleled 
beauty, and, let me say it with the utmost sadness, you have 
now had experience. Why will you not recognize facts ? 
Italian unity ! I have exposed the fatuity — who listens ? 
Italian freedom ! I do not attempt to reason with my 
daughter. She is pricked by an envenomed fly of Satan. 
Yet, behold her and the duchess ! It is the very union I 
preach ; and I am, I declare to you, signorina, in great dan- 
ger. I feel it, but I persist. I am in danger ” (Count Sera- 
biglione bowed his head low) “of the transcendent sin of 
scorn of my species.” 


A FRESH ENTANGLEMENT 


391 


The little nobleman swayed deploringly in his chair. 
“ Nothing is so perilous for a soul’s salvation as that. The 
one sane among madmen ! The one whose reason is left to 
him among thousands who have forsaken it ! I beg you to 
realize the idea. The Emperor, as I am given to understand, 
is about to make public admission of my services. I shall 
be all the more hated. Yet it is a considerable gain. I do 
not deny that I esteem it as a promotion for my services. 
I shall not be the first martyr in this world, signorina.” 

Count Serabiglione produced a martyr’s smile. 

“ The profits of my expected posts will be,” he was saying, 
with a reckoning eye cast upward into his cranium for 
accuracy, when Laura returned, and Yittoria ran out to the 
duchess. Amalia repeated Irma’s tattle. A curious little 
twitching of the brows at Violetta d’Isorella’s name marked 
the reception of it. 

“ She is most lovely,” Yittoria said. 

“ And absolutely reckless.” 

“ She is an old friend of Count Ammiani’s.” 

“ And you have an old friend here. But the old friend 
of a young woman — I need not say further than that it is 
different.” 

The duchess used the privilege of her affection, and urged 
Yittoria not to trifle with her lover’s impatience. 

Admitted to the chamber where Merthyr lay, she was 
enabled to make allowance for her irresolution. The face 
of the wounded man was like a lake-water taking light from 
Vittoria’s presence. 

“ This may go on for weeks,” she said to Laura. 

Three days later, Yittoria received an order from the 
Government to quit the city within a prescribed number 
of hours, and her brain was racked to discover why Laura 
appeared so little indignant at the barbarous act of despotism. 
Laura undertook to break the bad news to Merthyr. The 
parting was as quiet and cheerful as, in the opposite degree, 
Yittoria had thought it would be melancholy and regretful. 
“ What a Government ! ” Merthyr said, and told her to let 
him hear of any changes. “All changes that please my 
friends please me.” 

Yittoria kissed his forehead with one grateful murmur of 
farewell to the bravest heart she had ever known. The 


392 


VITTORIA 


going to her happiness seemed more like going to something 
fatal until she reached the Lago Maggiore. There she saw 
September beauty, and felt as if the splendour encircling 
her were her bridal decoration. But no bridegroom stood 
to greet her on the terrace-steps between the potted orange 
and citron-trees. Countess Ammiani extended kind hands 
to her at arms’ length. 

“You have come,” she said. “I hope that it is not too 
late.” 

Vittoria was a week without sight of her lover : nor did 
Countess Ammiani attempt to explain her words, or speak 
of other than common daily things. In body and soul Vit- 
toria had taken a chill. The silent blame resting on her in 
this house called up her pride, so that she would not ask any 
questions ; and when Carlo came, she wanted warmth to 
melt her. Their meeting was that of two passionless creat- 
ures. Carlo kissed her loyally, and courteously inquired 
after her health and the health of friends in Milan, and then 
he rallied his mother. Agostino had arrived with him, and 
the old man, being in one of his soft moods, unvexed by his 
conceits, Vittoria had some comfort from him of a dull kind. 
She heard Carlo telling his mother that he must go in the 
morning. Agostino replied to her quick look at him, “I 
stay ; ” and it seemed like a little saved from the wreck, for 
she knew that she could speak to Agostino as she could not 
to the countess. When his mother prepared to retire, Carlo 
walked over to his bride, and repeated rapidly and brightly 
his inquiries after friends in Milan. She, with a pure 
response to his natural-unnatural manner, spoke of Merthyr 
Powys chiefly: to which he said several times, “Dear 
fellow ! ” and added, “ I shall always love Englishmen for 
his sake.” 

This gave her one throb. “ I could not leave him, Carlo.” 

“ Certainly not, certainly not,” said Carlo. “ I should have 
been happy to wait on him myself. I was busy ; I am still. 
I dare say you have guessed that I have a new journal in 
my head: the Pallanza Iris is to be the name of it; — to 
be printed in three colours, to advocate three principles, 
in three styles. The Legitimists, the Moderates, and the 
Republicans are to proclaim themselves in its columns in 
prose, poetry, and hotch-potch. Once an editor, always an 


A FRESH ENTANGLEMENT 


893 


editor. The authorities suspect that something of the sort 
is about to be planted, so I can only make occasional visits 
here : — therefore, as you will believe,” — Carlo let his voice 
fall — “I have good reason to hate them still. They may 
cease to persecute me soon.” 

He insisted upon lighting his mother to her room. Yit- 
toria and Agostino sat talking of the Chief and the minor 
events of the war — of Luciano, Marco, Giulio, and Ugo 
Corte — till the conviction fastened on them that Carlo would 
not return, when Agostino stood up and said, yawning 
wearily, “ I’ll talk further to you, my child, to-morrow.” 

She begged that it might be now. 

“No; to-morrow,” said he. 

“Now, now ! ” she reiterated, and brought down a reproof 
from his fore-finger. 

“ The poetic definition of ‘ now ’ is that it is a small boat, 
my daughter, in which the female heart is constantly push- 
ing out to sea and sinking. ‘ To-morrow ’ is an island in the 
deeps, where grain grows. When I land you there, I will 
talk to you.” 

She knew that he went to join Carlo after he had quitted 
her. 

Agostino was true to his promise next day. He brought 
her nearer to what she had to face, though he did not help 
her vision much. Carlo had gone before sunrise. 

They sat on the terrace above the lake, screened from the 
sunlight by thick myrtle bushes. Agostino smoked his 
loosely-rolled cigarettes, and Yittoria sipped chocolate and 
looked upward to the summit of Motterone, with many 
thoughts and images in her mind. 

He commenced by giving her a love-message from Carlo. 
“ Hold fast to it that he means it : conduct is never a 
straight index where the heart’s involved,” said the chuck- 
ling old man ; “ or it is not in times like ours. You have been 
in the wrong, and your having a good excuse will not help 
you before the deciding fates. Woman that you are ! did 
you not think that because we were beaten we were going to 
rest for a very long while, and that your Carlo of yesterday 
was going to be your Carlo of to-day ? ” 

Vittoria tacitly confessed to it. 

“ Ay,” he pursued, “ when you wrote to him in the Yal 


394 


VITTORIA 


d’lntelvi, you supposed you had only to say, ‘I am ready,’ 
which was then the case. You made your summer and left 
the fruits to hang, and now you are astounded that seasons 
pass and fruits drop. You should have come to this place, 
if but for a pair of days, and so have fixed one matter in the 
chapter. This is how the chapter has run on. I see I talk 
to a stunned head ; you are thinking that Carlo’s love for 
you can’t have changed: and it has not, but occasion has 
gone and times have changed. Now listen. The countess 
desired the marriage. Carlo could not go to you in Milan 
with the sword in his hand. Therefore you had to come to 
him. He waited for you, perhaps for his own preposterous 
lover’s sake as much as to make his mother’s heart easy. If 
she loses him she loses everything, unless he leaves a wife to 
her care and the hope that her House will not be extinct, 
which is possibly not much more the weakness of old aris- 
tocracy than of human nature. 

“Meantime, his brothers in arms had broken up and 
entered Piedmont, and he remained waiting for you still. 
You are thinking that he had not waited a month. But if 
four months finished Lombardy, less than one month is 
quite sufficient to do the same for us little beings. He met 
the Countess d’Isorella here. You have to thank her for 
seeing him at all, so don’t wrinkle your forehead yet. 
Luciano Komara is drilling his men in Piedmont ; Angelo 
Guidascarpi has gone there. Carlo was considering it- his 
duty to join Luciano, when he met this lady, and she has 
apparently succeeded in altering his plans. Luciano and 
his band will go to Home. Carlo fancies that another blow 
will be struck for Lombardy. This lady should know ; the 
point is, whether she can be trusted. She persists in de- 
claring that Carlo’s duty is to remain, and — I cannot tell 
how, for I am as a child among women — she has persuaded 
him of her sincerity. Favour me now with your clearest 
understanding, and deliver it from feminine sensations of 
any description for just two minutes.” 

Agostino threw away the end of a cigarette and looked 
for firmness in Vittoria’s eyes. 

“ This Countess d’Isorella is opposed to Carlo’s marriage 
at present. She says that she is betraying the king’s 
secrets, and has no reliance on a woman. As a woman you 




A FRESH ENTANGLEMENT 


395 


will pardon her, for it is the language of your sex. You 
are also denounced by Barto Rizzo, a madman — he went 
mad as fire, and had to be chained at Yarese. In some way 
or other Countess d’Isorella got possession of him ; she has 
managed to subdue him. A sword-cut he received once in 
Verona has undoubtedly affected his brain, or caused it to 
be affected under strong excitement. He is at her villa, 
and she says — perhaps with some truth — that Carlo would 
in several ways lose his influence by his immediate mar- 
riage with you. The reason must have weight ; otherwise 
he would fulfil his mother’s principal request, and be at the 
bidding of his own desire. There ; I hope I have spoken 
plainly.” 

Agostino puffed a sigh of relief at the conclusion of his 
task. 

Yittoria had been too strenuously engaged in defending 
the steadiness of her own eyes to notice the shadow of an 
assumption of frankness in his. 

She said that she understood. 

She got away to her room like an insect carrying a load 
thrice its own size. All that she could really gather from 
Agostino’s words was, that she felt herself rocking in a 
tower, and that Violetta d’Isorella was beautiful. She had 
striven hard to listen to him with her wits alone, and her 
sensations subsequently revenged themselves in this fash- 
ion. The tower rocked and struck a bell that she discovered 
to be her betraying voice uttering cries of pain. She was 
for hours incapable of meeting Agostino again. His deli- 
cate intuition took the harshness off the meeting. He led 
her even to examine her state of mind, and to discern the 
fancies from the feelings by which she was agitated. He 
said shrewdly and bluntly, “ You can master pain, but not 
doubt. If you show a sign of unhappiness, remember that 
I shall know you doubt both what I have told you, and 
Carlo as well.” 

Yittoria fenced : “ But is there such a thing as hap- 
piness ? ” 

“ I should imagine so,” said Agostino, touching her cheek, 
“ and slipperiness likewise. There’s patience at any rate ; 
only you must dig for it. You arrive at nothing, but the 
eternal digging constitutes the object gained. I recollect 


396 


VITTORIA 


when I was a raw lad, full of ambition, in love, and without 
a franc in my pockets, one night in Paris, I found myself 
looking up at a street lamp ; there was a moth in it. He 
couldn’t get out, so he had very little to trouble his con- 
science. I think he was near happiness : he ought to have 
been happy. My luck was not so good, or you wouldn’t see 
me still alive, my dear.” 

Yittoria sighed for a plainer speaker. 


CHAPTER XXXVII 

ON LAGO MAGGIORE 

Carlo’s hours were passed chiefly across the lake, in the 
Piedmontese valleys. When at Pallanza he was restless, 
and he shunned the two or three minutes of privacy with 
his betrothed which the rigorous Italian laws besetting 
courtship might have allowed him to take. He had per- 
petually the look of a man starting from wine. It was 
evident that he and Countess d’Isorella continued to hold 
close communication, for she came regularly to the villa to 
meet him. On these occasions Countess Ammiani accorded 
her one ceremonious interview, and straightway locked her- 
self in her room. Violetta’s grace of ease and vivacity soared 
too high to be subject to any hostile judgement of her char- 
acter. She seemed to rely entirely on the force of her beauty, 
and to care little for those who did not acknowledge it. She 
accepted public compliments quite royally, nor was Agos- 
tino backward in offering them. “ And you have a voice, 
you know,” he sometimes said aside to Vittoria; but she 
had forgotten how easily she could swallow great praise of 
her voice ; she had almost forgotten her voice. Her delight 
was to hang her head above inverted mountains in the lake, 
and dream that she was just something better than the poor- 
est of human creatures. She could not avoid putting her 
mind in competition with this brilliant woman’s, and 
feeling eclipsed; and her weakness became pitiable. But 
Countess d’Isorella mentioned once that Pericles was at 


ON LAGO MAGGIORE 


397 


the Villa Ricciardi, projecting magnificent operatic enter- 
tainments. The reviving of a passion to sing possessed Vit- 
toria like a thirst for freedom, and instantly confused all 
the reflected images within her, as the fury of a sudden wind 
from the high Alps scourges the glassy surface of the lake. 
She begged Countess Ammiani’s permission that she might 
propose to Pericles to sing in his private operatic company, 
in any part, at the shortest notice. 

“ You wish to leave me ? ” said the countess, and resolutely 
conceived it. 

Speaking to her son on this subject, she thought it nec- 
essary to make some excuse for a singer’s instinct, who 
really did not live save on the stage. It amused Carlo ; he 
knew when his mother was really angry with persons she 
tried to shield from the anger of others ; and her not seeing 
the wrong on his side in his behaviour to his betrothed was 
laughable. Nevertheless she had divined the case more 
correctly than he : the lover was hurt. After what he had 
endured, he supposed, with all his forgiveness, that he had 
an illimitable claim upon his bride’s patience. He told his 
mother to speak to her openly. 

“ Why not you, my Carlo ? ” said the countess. 

“ Because, mother, if I speak to her, I shall end by throw- 
ing out my arms and calling for the priest.” 

“ I would clap hands to that.” 

“We will see; it may be soon or late, but it can’t be 
now.” 

“ How much am I to tell her, Carlo ? ” 

“ Enough to keep her from fretting.” 

The countess then asked herself how much she knew. 
Her habit of receiving her son’s word and will as supreme 
kept her ignorant of anything beyond the outline of his 
plans ; and being told to speak openly of them to another, 
she discovered that her acquiescing imagination supplied 
the chief part of her knowledge. She was ashamed also to 
have it thought, even by Carlo, that she had not gathered 
every detail of his occupation, so that she could not argue 
against him, and had to submit to see her dearest wishes 
lightly swept aside. 

“I beg you to tell me what you think of Countess 
d’Isorella; not the afterthought,” she said to Vittoria. 


898 


VITTORIA 


“ She is beautiful, dear Countess Ammiani.” 

“Call me mother now and then. Yes; she is beautiful. 
She has a bad name” 

“Envy must have given it, I think.” 

“ Of course she provokes envy. But I say that her name 
is bad, as envy could not make it. She is a woman who goes 
on missions, and carries a husband into society like a pass- 
port. You have only thought of her beauty ? ” 

“ I can see nothing else,” said Vittoria, whose torture at 
the sight of the beauty was appeased by her disingenuous 
pleading on its behalf. 

“ In my time Beauty was a sinner,” the countess resumed. 
“ My confessor has filled my ears with warnings that it is a 
net to the soul, a weapon for devils. May the saints of 
Paradise make bare the beauty of this woman. She has 
persuaded Carlo that she is serving the country. You have 
let him lie here alone in a fruitless bed, silly girl. He 
stayed for you while his comrades called him to Yercelli, 
where they are assembled. The man whom he salutes as 
his Chief gave him word to go there. They are bound for 
Borne. Ah me ! Borne is a great name, but Lombardy is 
Carlo’s natal home, and Lombardy bleeds. You were 
absent — how long you were absent ! If you could know the 
heaviness of those days of his waiting for you. And it was 
I who kept him here ! I must have omitted a prayer, for 
he would have been at Yercelli now with Luciano and Emilio, 
and you might have gone to him ; but he met this woman, 
who has convinced him that Piedmont will make a Winter 
march, and that his marriage must be delayed.” The coun- 
tess raised her face and drooped her hands from the wrists, 
exclaiming, “ If I have lately omitted one prayer, enlighten 
me, blessed heaven ! I am blind ; I cannot see for my son ; 
I am quite blind. I do not love the woman; therefore I 
doubt myself. You, my daughter, tell me your thought of 
her, tell me what you think. Young eyes observe ; young 
heads are sometimes shrewd in guessing.” 

Yittoria said, after a pause, “ I will believe her to be true, 
if she supports the king.” It was hardly truthful speaking 
on her part. 

“How can Carlo have been persuaded!” the countess 
sighed. 


ON LAGO MAGGIORE 


399 


“ By me ? ” Yittoria asked herself, and for a moment she 
was exulting. 

She spoke from that emotion when it had ceased to animate 
her. 

“ Carlo was angry with the king. He echoed Agostino, 
but Agostino does not sting as he did, and Carlo cannot 
avoid seeing what the king has sacrificed. Perhaps the 
Countess d’Isorella has shown him promises of fresh aid in 
the king’s handwriting. Suffering has made Carlo Alberto 
one with the Bepublicans, if he had other ambitions once. 
And Carlo dedicates his blood to Lombardy : he does rightly. 
Dear countess — my mother ! I have made him wait for me; 
I will be patient in waiting for him. I know that Countess 
d’Isorella is intimate with the king. There is a man named 
Barto Rizzo, who thinks me a guilty traitress, and she is 
making use of this man. That must be her reason for pro- 
hibiting the marriage. She cannot be false if she is capable 
of uniting extreme revolutionary agents and the king in 
one plot, I think; I do not know.” Yittoria concluded 
her perfect expression of confidence with this atoning 
doubtfulness. 

Countess Ammiani obtained her consent that she would 
not quit her side. 

After Yioletta had gone, Carlo, though he shunned secret 
interviews, addressed his betrothed as one who was not 
strange to his occupation and the trial his heart was under- 
going. She could not doubt that she was beloved, in spite 
of the colourlessness and tonelessness of a love that appealed 
to her intellect. He showed her a letter he had received 
from Laura, laughing at its abuse of Countess d’Isorella, 
and the sarcasms levelled at himself. 

In this letter Laura said that she was engaged in some- 
thing besides nursing. 

Carlo pointed his finger to the sentence, and remarked, 
“ I must have your promise — a word from you is enough 
— that you will not meddle with any intrigue.” 

Yittoria gave the promise, half trusting it to bring the 
lost bloom of their love to him ; but he received it as a plain 
matter of necessity. Certain of his love, she wondered 
painfully that it should continue so barren of music. 

“Why am I to pledge myself that I will be useless?” 


400 


VITTORIA 


she asked. “You mean, my Carlo, that I am to sit still, 
and watch, and wait.” 

He answered, “ I will tell you this much : I can be struck 
vitally through you. In the game I am playing, I am able 
to defend myself. If you enter it, distraction begins. Stay 
with my mother.” 

“Am I to know nothing?” 

“Everything — in good time.” 

“I might — might I not help you, my Carlo?” 

“Yes; and nobly too. And I show you the way.” 

Agostino and Carlo made an expedition to Turin. Before 
he went, Carlo took her in his arms. 

“Is it coming?” she said, shutting her eyelids like a 
child expecting the report of firearms. 

He pressed his lips to the closed eyes. “Not yet; but 
are you growing timid? ” 

His voice seemed to reprove her. 

She could have told him that keeping her in the dark 
among unknown terrors ruined her courage; but the min- 
utes were too precious, his touch too sweet. In eyes and 
hands he had become her lover again. The blissful minutes 
rolled away like waves that keep the sunshine out at sea. 

Her solitude in the villa was beguiled by the arrival of 
the score of an operatic scena, entitled “Hagar,” by Rocco 
Ricci, which she fancied that either Carlo or her dear old 
master had sent, and she devoured it. She thought it 
written expressly for her. With Hagar she communed 
during the long hours, and sang herself on to the verge of 
an imagined desert beyond the mountain-shadowed lake and 
the last view of her beloved Motterone. Hagar’ s face of 
tears in the Brera was known to her; and Hagar in her 
‘Addio ’ gave the living voice to that dumb one. Yittoria 
revelled in the delicious vocal misery. She expanded with 
the sorrow of poor Hagar, whose tears refreshed her, and 
parted her from her recent narrowing self-consciousness. 
The great green mountain fronted her like a living pres- 
ence. Motterone supplied the place of the robust and ven- 
erable patriarch, whom she reproached, and worshipped, but 
with a fathomless burdensome sense of cruel injustice, 
deeper than the tears or the voice which spoke of it: a 
feeling of subjected love that was like a mother’s giving 


ON LAGO MAGGIORE 


401 


suck to a detested child. Countess Ammiani saw the abrupt 
alteration of her step and look with a dim surprise. “ What 
do you conceal from me?” she asked, and supplied the 
answer by charitably attributing it to news that the signora 
Piaveni was coming. 

When Laura came, the countess thanked her, saying — 
“I am a wretched companion for this boiling head.” 

Laura soon proved to her that she had been the best, for 
after very few hours Yittoria was looking like the Hagar 
on the canvas. 

A woman such as Violetta d’Isorella was of the sort from 
which Laura shrank with all her feminine power of loathing; 
but she spoke of her with some effort at personal tolerance 
until she heard of Violetta’s stipulation for the deferring of 
Carlo’s marriage, and contrived to guess that Carlo was 
reserved and unfamiliar with his betrothed. Then she cried 
out, “ Fool that he is ! Is it ever possible to come to the 
end of the folly of men? She has inflamed his vanity. 
She met him when you were holding him waiting, and no 
doubt she commenced with lamentations over the country, 
followed by a sigh, a fixed look, a cheerful air, and the 
assurance to him that she knew it — uttered as if through 
the keyhole of the royal cabinet — she knew that Sardinia 
would break the Salasco armistice in a month : — if only, 
if the king could be sure of support from the youth of 
Lombardy.” 

“ Do you suspect the unhappy king? ” Vittoria interposed. 

“ Grasp your colours tight,” said Laura, nodding sarcastic 
approbation of such fidelity, and smiling slightly. “ There 
has been no mention of the king. Countess d’Isorella is a 
spy and a tool of the Jesuits, taking pay from all parties — 
Austria as well, I would swear. Their object is to para- 
lyze the march on Rome, and she has won Carlo for them. 
I am told that Barto Rizzo is another of her conquests. 
Thus she has a madman and a fool, and what may not be 
done with a madman and a fool? However, I have set a 
watch on her. She must have inflamed Carlo’s vanity. 
He has it, just as they all have. There’s trickery: I would 
rather behold the boy charging at the head of a column than 
putting faith in this base creature. She must have simu- 
lated well,” Laura went on talking to herself. 


402 


VITTORIA 


“What trickery?” said Vittoria. 

“He was in love with the woman when he was a lad,” 
Laura replied, and pertinently to Vittoria* s feelings. This 
threw the moist shade across her features. 

Beppo in Turin and Luigi on the lake were the watch set 
on Countess d’Isorella; they were useless except to fortify 
Laura’s suspicions. The Duchess of Graatli wrote mere 
gossip from Milan. She mentioned that Anna of Lenken- 
stein had visited with her the tomb of her brother Count 
Paul at Bologna, and had returned in double mourning; and 
that Madame Sedley — “ the sister of our poor ruined Pier- 
son” — had obtained grace, for herself at least, from Anna, 
by casting herself at Anna’s feet, and that they were now 
friends. 

Vittoria felt ashamed of Adela. 

When Carlo returned, the signora attacked him boldly 
with all her weapons; reproached him; said, “Would my 
husband have treated me in such a manner? ” Carlo twisted 
his moustache and stroked his young beard for patience. 
They passed from room to balcony and terrace, and Laura 
brought him back into company without cessation of her 
tire of questions and sarcasms, saying, “No, no; we will 
speak of these things publicly.” She appealed alternately 
to Agostino, Vittoria, and Countess Ammiani for support, 
and as she certainly spoke sense, Carlo was reduced to 
gloom and silence. Laura then paused. “ Surely you have 
punished your bride enough?” she said; and more softly, 
“Brother of my Giacomo! you are under an evil spell.” 

Carlo started up in anger. Bending to Vittoria, he offered 
her his hand to lead her out. They went together. 

“A good sign,” said the countess. 

“A bad sign! ” Laura sighed. “If he had taken me out 
for explanation! But tell me, my Agostino, are you the 
woman’s dupe?” 

“I have been,” Agostino admitted frankly. 

“You did really put faith in her?” 

“She condescends to be so excessively charming.” 

“You could not advance a better reason.” 

“It is one of our best; perhaps our very best, where your 
sex is concerned, signora.” 

“You are her dupe no more?” 


ON LAGO MAGGIORE 


408 


“No more. Oh, dear no! ” 

“You understand her now, do you?” 

“For the very reason, signora, that I have been her dupe. 
That is, I am beginning to understand her. I am not yet 
in possession of the key.” 

“Not yet in possession!” said Laura contemptuously; 
“but, never mind. Now for Carlo.” 

“Now for Carlo. He declares that he never has been 
deceived by her.” 

“He is perilously vain,” sighed the signora. 

“ Seriously ” — Agostino drew out the length of his beard 
— “I do not suppose that he has been — boys, you know, 
are so acute. He fancies he can make her of service, and 
he shows some skill.” 

“ The skill of a fish to get into the net ! ” 

“My dearest signora, you do not allow for the times. I 
remember” — Agostino peered upward through his eye- 
lashes in a way that he had — “I remember seeing in a 
meadow a gossamer running away with a spider-thread. It 
was against all calculation. But, observe : there were exte- 
rior agencies at work: a stout wind blew. The ordinary 
reckoning is based on calms. Without the operation of 
disturbing elements, the spider-thread would have gently 
detained the gossamer.” 

“Is that meant for my son?” Countess Ammiani asked 
slowly, with incredulous emphasis. 

Agostino and Laura, laughing in their hearts at the 
mother’s mysterious veneration for Carlo, had to explain 
that ‘gossamer’ was a poetic, generic term, to embrace the 
lighter qualities of masculine youth. 

A woman’s figure passed swiftly by the window, which 
led Laura to suppose that the couple outside had parted. 
She ran forth, calling to one of them, but they came hand 
in hand, declaring that they had seen neither woman nor 
man. “ And I am happy, ” Yittoria whispered. She looked 
happy, pale though she was. 

“It is only my dreadful longing for rest which makes me 
pale,” she said to Laura, when they were alone. “Carlo 
has proved to me that he is wiser than I am.” 

“A proof that you love Carlo, perhaps,” Laura rejoined. 

“Dearest, he speaks more gently of the king.” 


404 


VITTORIA 


“It may be cunning, or it may be carelessness.” 

“Will nothing satisfy you, wilful sceptic? He is quite 
alive to the Countess d’Isorella’s character. He told me 
how she dazzled him once.” 

“Not how she has entangled him now?” 

“It is not true. He told me what I should like to dream 
over without talking any more to anybody. Ah, what a 
delight! to have known him, as you did, when he was a 
boy. Can one who knew him then mean harm to him? I 
am not capable of imagining it. No; he will not abandon 
poor broken Lombardy, and he is right; and it is my duty 
to sit and wait. No shadow shall come between us. He 
has said it, and I have said it. We have but one thing to 
fear, which is contemptible to fear; so I am at peace.” 

“Love-sick,” was Laura’s mental comment. Yet when 
Carlo explained his position to her next day, she was milder 
in her condemnation of him, and even admitted that a man 
must be guided by such brains as he possesses. He had 
conceived that his mother had a right to claim one month 
from him at the close of the war ; he said this reddening. 
Laura nodded. He confessed that he was irritated when 
he met the Countess d’Isorella, with whom, to his astonish- 
ment, he found Barto Bizzo. She had picked him up, weak 
from a paroxysm, on the high-road to Milan. “ And she 
tamed the brute,” said Carlo, in admiration of her ability; 
“ she saw that he was plot-mad, and she set him at work on 
a stupendous plot; agents running nowhere, and scribblings 
concentring in her work-basket. You smile at me, as if I 
were a similar patient, signora. But I am my own agent. 
I have personally seen all my men in Turin and elsewhere. 
Violetta has not one grain of love for her country; but she 
can be made to serve it. As for me, I have gone too far to 
think of turning aside and drilling with Luciano. He may 
yet be diverted from Borne, to strike another blow for Lom- 
bardy. The Chief, I know, has some religious sentiment 
about Borne. So might I have; it is the Head of Italy. 
Let us raise the body first. And we have been beaten here. 
Great Gods ! we will have another fight for it on the same 
spot, and quickly. Besides, I cannot face Luciano and tell 
him why I was away from him in the dark hour. How can 
I tell him that I was lingering to bear a bride to the altar? 


ON LAGO MAGGIORE 


405 


while he and the rest — poor fellows ! Hard enough to have 
to mention it to yon, signora! ” 

She understood his boyish sense of shame. Making 
smooth allowances for a feeling natural to his youth and 
the circumstances, she said, “ I am your sister, for you were 
my husband’s brother in arms, Carlo. We two speak heart 
to heart : I sometimes fancy you have that voice : you hurt 
me with it more than you know; gladden me too! My 
Carlo, I wish to hear why Countess d’Isorella objects to 
your marriage.” 

“ She does not object.” 

“ An answer that begins by quibbling is not propitious. 
She opposes it.” 

“ For this reason : you have not forgotten the bronze but- 
terfly?” 

“I see more clearly,” said Laura, with a start.. 

“ There appears to be no cure for the brute’s mad sus- 
picion of her,” Carlo pursued: “and he is powerful among 
the Milanese. If my darling takes my name, he can damage 
much of my influence, and — you know what there is to be 
dreaded from a fanatic.” 

Laura nodded, as if in full agreement with him, and said, 
after meditating a minute, “ What sort of a lover is this ! ” 
She added a little laugh to the singular interjection. 

“Yes, I have also thought of a secret marriage,” said 
Carlo, stung by her penetrating instinct so that he was 
enabled to read the meaning in her mind. 

“ The best way, when you are afflicted by a dilemma of 
such a character, my Carlo, ” the signora looked at him, “ is 
to take a chess-table and make your moves on it. ‘King — 
my duty ; ’ ‘queen — my passion ; ’ ‘bishop — my social obli- 
gation; ’ ‘knight — my what-you-will and my round-the- 
corner wishes.’ Then, if you find that queen may be 
gratified without endangering king, and so forth, why, you 
may follow your inclinations ; and if not, not. My Carlo, 
you are either enviably cool, or you are an enviable hypo- 
crite.” 

“The matter is not quite so easily settled as that,” said 
Carlo. 

On the whole, though against her preconception, Laura 
thought him an honest lover, and not the player of a double 


406 


VITTORIA 


game. She saw that Vittoria should have been with him 
in the critical hour of defeat, when his passions were down, 
and heaven knows what weakness of our common manhood, 
that was partly pride, partly love-craving, made his nature 
waxen to every impression; a season, as Laura knew, when 
the mistress of a loyal lover should not withhold herself 
from him. A nature tender like Carlo’s, and he bearing an 
enamoured heart, could not, as Luciano Romara had done, 
pass instantly from defeat to drill. And vain as Carlo was 
(the vanity being most intricate and subtle, like a nervous 
fluid), he was very open to the belief that he could diplo- 
matize as well as fight, and lead a movement yet better than 
follow it. Even so the signora tried to read his case. 

They were all, excepting Countess Ammiani (“who will 
never, I fear, do me this honour,” Violetta wrote, and the 
countess said, “ Never,” and quoted a proverb), about to pass 
three or four days at the villa of Countess d’Isorella. Be- 
fore they set out, Vittoria received a portentous envelope 
containing a long scroll, that was headed “Your Crimes,” 
and detailing a list of her offences against the country, from 
the revelation of the plot in her first letter to Wilfrid, to 
services rendered to the enemy during the war, up to the 
departure of Charles Albert out of forsaken Milan. 

“B. R.” was the undisguised signature at the end of the 
scroll. 

Things of this description restored her old war-spirit to 
Vittoria. She handed the scroll to Laura; Laura, in great 
alarm, passed it on to Carlo. He sent for Angelo Guida- 
scarpi in haste, for Carlo read it as an ante-dated justificatory 
document to some mischievous design, and he desired that 
hands as sure as his own, and yet more vigilant eyes, should 
keep watch over his betrothed. 


VIOLETTA d’ISORELLA 


407 


CHAPTER XXXVIII 

VIOLETTA D’lSORELLA 

The villa inhabited by Countess d’Isorella was on the 
water’s edge, within clear view of the projecting Villa 
Ricciardi, in that darkly-wooded region of the lake which 
leads up to the Italian-Swiss canton. 

Violetta received here an envoy from Anna of Lenken- 
stein, direct out of Milan : an English lady, calling herself 
Mrs. Sedley, and a particular friend of Countess Anna. At 
the first glance Violetta saw that her visitor had the preten- 
sion to match her arts against her own; so, to sound her 
thoroughly, she offered her the hospitalities of the villa for 
a day or more. The invitation was accepted. Much to 
Violetta’s astonishment, the lady betrayed no anxiety to 
state the exact terms of her mission : she appeared, on the 
contrary, to have an unbounded satisfaction in the society 
of her hostess, and prattled of herself and Antonio-Pericles, 
and her old affection for Vittoria, with the wiliest sim- 
plicity, only requiring to be assured at times that she spoke 
intelligible Italian and exquisite French. V ioletta supposed 
her to feel that she commanded the situation. Patient study 
of this woman revealed to Violetta the amazing fact that she 
was dealing with a born bourgeoise, who, not devoid of petty 
acuteness, was unaffectedly enjoying her noble small-talk, 
and the prospect of a footing in Italian high society. Vio- 
letta smiled at the comedy she had been playing in, scarcely 
reproaching herself for not having imagined it. She pro- 
ceeded to the point of business without further delay. 

Adela Sedley had nothing but a verbal message to deliver. 
The Countess Anna of Lenkenstein offered, on her word of 
honour as a noblewoman, to make over the quarter of her 
estate and patrimony to the Countess d’Isorella, if the latter 
should succeed in thwarting — something. 

Forced to speak plainly, Adela confessed she thought she 
knew the nature of that something. 

To preclude its being named, Violetta then diverged from 
the subject. 


408 


VITTORIA 


“We will go round to your friend the signor Antonio- 
Pericles at Villa Ricciardi,” she said. “ You will see that 
he treats me familiarly, but he is not a lover of mine. I 
suspect your ‘something’ has something to do with the 
Jesuits.” 

Adela Sedley replied to the penultimate sentence: “It 
would not surprise me, indeed, to hear of any number of 
adorers.” 

“I have the usual retinue, possibly,” said Violetta. 

“Dear countess, I could be one of them myself! ” Adela 
burst out with tentative boldness. 

“Then, kiss me.” 

And behold, they interchanged that unsweet feminine 
performance. 

Adela’s lips were unlocked by it. 

“How many would envy me, dear Countess d’Isorella! ” 

She really conceived that she was driving into Violetta’s 
heart by the great high-road of feminine vanity. Violetta 
permitted her to think as she liked. 

“Your countrywomen, madame, do not make large allow- 
ances for beauty, I hear.” 

“None at all. But they are so stiff! so frigid! I know 
one, a Miss Ford, now in Italy, who would not let me have 
a male friend, and a character, in conjunction.” 

“You are acquainted with Count Karl Lenkenstein? ” 

Adela blushingly acknowledged it. 

“The whisper goes that I was once admired by him,” 
said Violetta. 

“And by Count Ammiani.” 

“By count? by milord? by prince? by king?” 

“By all who have good taste.” 

“Was it jealousy, then, that made Countess Anna hate 
me?” 

“ She could not • — or she cannot now.” 

“Because I have not taken possession of her brother.” 

“I could not — may I say it? — I could not understand 
his infatuation until Countess Anna showed me the portrait 
of Italy’s most beautiful living woman. She told me to 
look at the last of the Borgia family.” 

Violetta laughed out clear music. “And now you see 
her?” 


VIOLETTA D’lSORELLA 


409 


“She said that it had saved her brother’s life. It has a 
star and a scratch on the left cheek from a dagger. He wore 
it on his heart, and an assassin struck him there : a true 
romance. Countess Anna said to me that it had saved one 
brother, and that it should help to avenge the other. She 
has not spoken to me of Jesuits.” 

“Nothing at all of the Jesuits? ” said Violetta carelessly. 
“ Perhaps she wishes to use my endeavours to get the Salasco 
armistice prolonged, and tempts me, knowing I am a prodi- 
gal. Austria is victorious, you know, but she wants peace. 
Is that the case? I do not press you to answer.” 

Adela replied hesitatingly: “Are you aware, countess, 
whether there is any truth in the report that Countess Lena 
has a passion for Count Ammiani? ” 

“Ah, then,” said Violetta, “Countess Lena’s sister would 
naturally wish to prevent his contemplated marriage! We 
may have read the riddle at last. Are you discreet? If 
you are, you will let it be known that I had the honour of 
becoming intimate with you in Turin — say, at the Court. 
We shall meet frequently there during winter, I trust, if 
you care to make a comparison of the Italian with the 
Austrian and the English nobility.” 

An eloquent “Oh!” escaped from Adela’s bosom. She 
had certainly not expected to win her way with this estima- 
ble Italian titled lady thus rapidly. Violetta had managed 
her so well that she was no longer sure whether she did 
know the exact nature of her mission, the words of which 
she had faithfully transmitted as having been alone con- 
fided to her. It was with chagrin that she saw Pericles 
put his fore-finger on a salient dimple of the countess’s 
cheek when he welcomed them. He puffed and blew like 
one working simultaneously at bugle and big drum on hear- 
ing an allusion to Vittoria. The mention of the name of 
that abominable traitress was interdicted at Villa Ricciardi, 
he said; she had dragged him at two armies’ tails to find 
his right senses at last : Pericles was cured of his passion 
for her at last. He had been mad, but he was cured — and 
so forth, in the old strain. His preparations for a private 
operatic performance diverted him from these fierce incrimi- 
nations, and he tripped busily from spot to spot, conducting 
the ladies over the tumbled lower floors of the spacious 


410 


VITTORIA 


villa, and calling their admiration on the desolation of the 
scene. Then they went up to the maestro’s room. Pericles 
became deeply considerate for the master’s privacy. “ He is 
my slave; the man has ruined himself for la Vittoria; but 
I respect the impersonation of art,” he said under his breath 
to the ladies as they stood at the door ; “ hark ! ” The piano 
was touched, and the voice of Irma di Karski broke out in 
a shrill crescendo. Eocco Eicci within gave tongue to the 
vehement damnatory dance of Pericles outside. Eocco 
struck his piano again encouragingly for a second attempt, 
but Irma was sobbing. She was heard to say : “ This is the 
fifteenth time you have pulled me down in one morning. 
You hate me; you do; you hate me.” Eocco ran his fin- 
gers across the keys, and again struck the octave for Irma. 
Pericles wiped his forehead, when, impenitent and unteach- 
able, she took the notes in the manner of a cock. He 
thumped at the door violently and entered. 

“Excellent! horrid! brava! abominable! beautiful! My 
Irma, you have reached the skies. You ascend like a fire- 
work, and crown yourself at the top. No more to-day; but 
descend at your leisure, my dear, and we will try to mount 
again by-and-by, and not so fast, if you please. Ha! your 
voice is a racehorse. You will learn to ride him with temper 
and judgement, and you will go. Not so, my Eocco? Irma, 
you want repose, my dear. One thing I guarantee to you 
— you will please the public. It is a minor thing that you 
should please me.” 

Countess d’Isorella led Irma away, and had to bear with 
many fits of weeping, and to assent to the force of all the 
charges of vindictive conspiracy and inveterate malice with 
which the jealous creature assailed Yittoria’s name. The 
countess then claimed her ear for half-a-minute. 

“Have you had any news of Countess Anna lately?” 

Irma had not; she admitted it despondently. “'There is 
such a vile conspiracy against me in Italy — and Italy is a 
poor singer’s fame — that I should be tempted to do any- 
thing. And I detest la Vittoria. She has such a hold on 
this Antonio-Pericles, I don’t see how I can hurt her, unless 
I meet her and fly at her throat.” 

“You naturally detest her,” said the countess. “Eepeat 
Countess Anna’s proposal to you.” 


VIOLETTA D’lSORELLA 


411 


“It was insulting — she offered me money.” 

“ That you should persuade me to assist you in preventing 
la Vittoria’s marriage to Count Ammiani?” 

“Dear lady, you know I did not try to persuade you.” 

“You knew that you would not succeed, my Irma. But 
Count Ammiani will not marry her; so you will have a 
right to claim some reward. I do not think that la Vittoria 
is quite idle. Look out for yourself, my child. If you take 
to plotting, remember it is a game of two.” 

“ If she thwarts me in one single step, I will let loose 
that madman on her,” said Irma, trembling. 

“You mean the signor Antonio-Pericles? ” 

“No; I mean that furious man I saw at your villa, dear 
countess.” 

“Ah! Barto Rizzo. A very furious man. He bellowed 
when he heard her name, I remember. You must not do 
it. But, for Count Ammiani’s sake, I desire to see his 
marriage postponed, at least.” 

“Where is she?” Irma inquired. 

The countess shrugged. “Even though I knew, I could 
not prudently tell you in your present excited state.” 

She went to Pericles for a loan of money. Pericles 
remarked that there was not much of it in Turin. “But, 
countess, you whirl the gold-pieces like dust from your 
wheels ; and a spy, my good soul, a lovely secret emissary, 
she will be getting underpaid if she allows herself to want 
money. There is your beauty; it is ripe, but it is fresh, 
and it is extraordinary. Yes; there is your beauty.” Be- 
fore she could obtain a promise of the money, Violetta had 
to submit to be stripped to her character, which was hard; 
but on the other hand, Pericles exacted no interest on his 
money, and it was not often that he exacted a return of it 
in coin. Under these circumstances, ladies in need of 
money can find it in their hearts to pardon mere brutality 
of phrase. Pericles promised to send it to the countess on 
one condition; which condition he cancelled, saying de- 
jectedly, “ I do not care to know where she is. I will not 
know.” 

“She has the score of Hagar, wherever she is,” said 
Violetta, “ and when she hears that you have done the scena 
without her aid, you will have stuck a dagger in her bosom.” 


412 


VITTORIA 


“Not,” Pericles cried in despair, “not if she should hear 
Irma’s Hagar ! To the desert with Irma. It is the place 
for a crab-apple. Bravo, Abraham ! you were wise.” 

Pericles added that Montini was hourly expected, and that 
there was to be a rehearsal in the evening. 

When she had driven home, Violetta found Barto Rizzo’s 
accusatory paper laid on her writing-desk. She gathered 
the contents in a careless glance, and walked into the garden 
alone, to look for Carlo. 

He was leaning on the balustrade of the terrace, near the 
water-gate, looking into the deep clear lake-water. Violetta 
placed herself beside him without a greeting. 

“ You are watching fish for coolness, my Carlo ? ” 

“ Yes,” he said, and did not turn to her face. 

“ You were very angry when you arrived ? ” 

She waited for his reply. 

“ Why do you not speak, Carlino ? ” 

“ I am watching fish for coolness,” he said. 

“ Meantime,” said Violetta, “ I am scorched.” 

He looked up, and led her to an arch of shade, where he 
sat quite silent. 

“ Can anything be more vexing than this ? ” she was 
reduced to exclaim. 

“ Ah ! ” said he, “ you would like the catalogue to be 
written out for you in a big bold hand, possibly, with a 
terrific initials at the end of the page.” 

“ Carlo, you have done worse than that. When I saw 
you first here, what crimes did you not accuse me of ? what 
names did you not scatter on my head ? and what things 
did I not confess to ? I bore the unkindness, for you were 
beaten, and you wanted a victim. And, my dear friend, 
considering that I am after all a woman, my forbearance has 
subsequently been still greater.” 

“How?” he asked. Her half-pathetic candour melted 
him. 

“ You must have a lively memory for the uses of forget- 
fulness, Carlo. When you had scourged me well, you 
thought it proper to raise me up and give me comfort. I 
was wicked for serving the king, and therefore the country, 
as a spy ; but I was to persevere, and cancel my iniquities 
by betraying those whom I served to you. That was your 


VIOLETTA dTsORELLA 


413 


instructive precept. Have I done it or not ? Answer, too — 
have I done it for any payment beyond yonr approbation ? 
I persuaded you to hope for Lombardy, and without any 
vaunting of my own patriotism. You have seen and spoken 
to the men I directed you to visit. If their heads master 
yours, I shall be reprobated for it, I know surely ; but I am 
confident as yet that you can match them. In another 
month I expect to see the king over the Ticino once more, 
and Carlo in Brescia with his comrades. You try to pene- 
trate my eyes. That’s foolish; I can make them glass. 
Bead me by what I say and what I do. I do not entreat 
you to trust me; I merely beg that you will trust your own 
judgement of me by what I have helped you to do hitherto. 
You and I, my dear boy, have had some trifling together. 
Admit that another woman would have refused to surrender 
you as I did when your unruly Vittoria was at last induced 
to come to you from Milan. Or, another woman would have 
had her revenge on discovering that she had been a puppet 
of soft eyes and a lover’s quarrel with his mistress. Instead 
of which, I let you go. I am opposed to the marriage, it’s 
true ; and you know why.” 

Carlo had listened to Violetta, measuring the false and 
the true in this recapitulation of her conduct with cool 
accuracy until she alluded to their personal relations. 
Thereat his brows darkened. 

“We had 1 some trifling together,’ ” he said, musingly. 

“ Is it going to be denied in these sweeter days ? ” Vio- 
letta reddened. 

“ The phrase is elastic. Suppose my bride were to hear it ? ” 

“ It was addressed to your ears, Carlo.” 

“ It cuts two ways. Will you tell me when it was that I 
last had the happiness of saluting you, lip to lip ? ” 

“ In Brescia — before I had espoused an imbecile — two 
nights before my marriage — near the fountain of the Greek 
girl with a pitcher.” 

Pride and anger nerved the reply. It was uttered in 
a rapid low breath. Coming altogether unexpectedly, it 
created an intense momentary revulsion of his feelings by 
conjuring up his boyish love in a scene more living than the 
sunlight. 

He lifted her hand to his mouth. He was Italian enough, 


414 


YITTORIA 


though a lover, to feel that she deserved more. She had 
reddened deliciously, and therewith hung a dewy rosy 
moisture on her underlids. Raising her eyes, she looked 
like a cut orange to a thirsty lip. He kissed her, saying, 
“ Pardon.” 

“Keep it secret, you mean?” she retorted. “Yes, I 
pardon that wish of yours. I can pardon much to my 
beauty.” 

She stood up as majestically as she had spoken. 

“ You know, my Violetta, that I am madly in love.” 

“ I have learnt it.” 

“You know it: — what else would . . . ? If I were not 
lost in love, could I see you as I do and let Brescia be the 
final chapter ? ” 

Violetta sighed. “ I should have preferred its being so 
rather than this superfluous additional line to announce an 
end, like a foolish staff on the edge of a cliff. You thought 
that you were saluting a leper, or a saint ? ” 

“ Neither. If ever we can talk together again, as we have 
done,” Carlo said gloomily, “ I will tell you what I think of 
myself.” 

“No, but Richelieu might have behaved .... Ah! per- 
haps not quite in the same way,” she corrected her flowing 
apology for him. “But then, he was a Frenchman. He 
could be flighty without losing his head. Dear Italian 
Carlo ! Yes, in the teeth of Barto Rizzo, and/or the sake of 
the country, marry her at once. It will be the best thing 
for you ; really the best. You want to know from me the 
whereabout of Barto Rizzo. He may be in the mountain 
over Stresa, or in Milan. He also has thrown off my yoke, 
such as it was ! I do assure you, Carlo, I have no command 
over him : but, mind, I half doat on the wretch. No man 
made me desperately in love with myself before he saw me, 
when I stopped his raving in the middle of the road with 
one look of my face. There was foam on his beard and 
round his eyes ; the poor wretch took out his handkerchief, 
and he sobbed. I don’t know how many luckless creatures 
he had killed on his way ; but when I took him into my car- 
riage — king, emperor, orator on stilts, minister of police — 
not one has flattered me as he did, by just gazing at me. 
Beauty can do as much as music, my Carlo.” 


VIOLETTA D'lSORELLA 


415 


Carlo thanked heaven that Violetta had no passion in her 
nature. She had none : merely a leaning toward evil, a 
light sense of shame, a desire for money, and in her heart a 
contempt for the principles she did not possess, but which, 
apart from the intervention of other influences, could occa- 
sionally sway her actions. Friendship, or rather the shadowy 
recovery of a past attachment that had been more than 
friendship, inclined her now and then to serve a master who 
failed distinctly to represent her interests; and when she 
met Carlo after the close of the war, she had really set to 
work in hearty kindliness to rescue him from what she 
termed “ shipwreck with that disastrous Republican crew.” 
He had obtained greater ascendency over her than she liked ; 
yet she would have forgiven it, as well as her consequent 
slight deviation from direct allegiance to her masters in 
various cities, but for Carlo’s commanding personal coolness. 
She who had tamed a madman by her beauty, was outraged, 
and not unnaturally, by the indifference of a former lover. 

Later in the day, Laura and Vittoria, with Agostino, 
reached the villa ; and Adela put her lips to Vittoria’s ear, 
whispering : “ Naughty ! when are you to lose your liberty 
to turn men’s heads ? ” and then she heaved a sigh with 
Wilfrid’s name. She had formed the acquaintance of 
Countess d’Isorella in Turin, she said, and satisfactorily 
repeated her lesson, but with a blush. She was little more 
than a shade to Vittoria, who wondered what she had to live 
for. After the early evening dinner, when sunlight and the 
colours of the sun were beyond the western mountains, they 
pushed out on the lake. A moon was overhead, seeming to 
drop lower on them as she filled with light. 

Agostino and Vittoria fell upon their theme of discord, as 
usual — the King of Sardinia. 

“We near the vesper hour, my daughter,” said Agostino ; 
“ you would provoke me to argumentation in heaven itself. 
I am for peace. I remember looking down on two cats with 
arched backs in the solitary arena of the Verona amphi- 
theatre. We men, my Carlo, will not, in the decay of time, 
so conduct ourselves.” 

Vittoria looked on Laura and thought of the cannon- 
sounding hours, whose echoes rolled over their slaughtered 
hope. The sun fell, the moon shone, and the sun would 


416 


VITTORIA 


rise again, but Italy lay face to earth. They had seen her 
together before the enemy. That recollection was a joy that 
stood, though the winds beat at it, and the torrents. She 
loved her friend’s worn eyelids and softly-shut mouth; — 
the after-glow of battle seemed on them ; the silence of the 
field of carnage under heaven ; — and the patient turning of 
Laura’s eyes this way and that to speakers upon common 
things, covered the despair of her heart as with a soldier’s 
cloak. 

Laura met the tender study of Vittoria’s look, and smiled. 

They neared the Villa Ricciardi, and heard singing. The 
villa was lighted profusely, so that it made a little mock- 
sunset on the lake. 

“ Irma ! ” said Vittoria*, astonished at the ring of a well- 
known voice that shot up in firework fashion, as Pericles 
had said of it. Incredulous, she listened till she was sure ; 
and then glanced hurried questions at all eyes. Violetta 
laughed, saying, “You have the score of Rocco Ricci’s 
Hagar .” 

The boat drew under the blazing windows, and half guess- 
ing, half hearing, Vittoria understood that Pericles was giv- 
ing an entertainment here, and had abjured her. She was 
not insensible to the slight. This feeling, joined to her 
long unsatisfied craving to sing, led her to be intolerant of 
Irma’s style, and visibly vexed her. 

Violetta whispered: “He declares that your voice is 
cracked : show him ! Burst out with the ‘ Addio ’ of Hagar. 
May she not, Carlo ? Don’t you permit the poor soul to 
sing ? She cannot contain herself.” 

Carlo, Adela, Agostino, and Violetta prompted her, and, 
catching a pause in the villa, she sang the opening notes of 
Hagar’s “ Addio ” with her old glorious fulness of tone and 
perfect utterance. 

The first who called her name was Rocco Ricci, but Peri- 
cles was the first to rush out and hang over the boat. 
“ Witch ! traitress ! infernal ghost ! heart of ice ! ” and in 
English “ humbug ! ” and in French “ coquine ! ” : — these 
were a few of the titles he poured on her. Rocco Ricci and 
Montini kissed hands to her, begging her to come to them. 
She was very willing outwardly, and in her heart most eager; 
but Carlo bade the rowers push off. Then it was pitiful to 


VIOLETTA D’lSORELLA 


417 


hear the shout of abject supplication from Pericles. He 
implored Count Ammiani’s pardon, Vittoria’s pardon, for 
telling her what she was; and as the boat drew farther 
away, he offered her sums of money to enter the villa and 
sing the score of Hagar. He offered to bear the blame of 
her bad behaviour to him, said he would forget it and 
stamp it out ; that he would pay for the provisioning of a 
regiment of volunteers for a whole month ; that he would 
present her marriage trousseau to her — yea, and let her 
marry. “ Sandra ! my dear ! my dear ! ” he cried, and 
stretched over the parapet speechless, like a puppet slain. 

So strongly did she comprehend the sincerity of his pas- 
sion for her voice that she could or would see nothing ex- 
travagant in this demonstration, which excited unrestrained 
laughter in every key from her companions in the boat. 
When the boat was about a hundred yards from the shore, 
and in full moonlight, she sang the great “Addio” of Hagar. 
At the close of it, she had to feel for her lover’s hand blindly. 
No one spoke, either at the Villa Ricciardi, or about her. 
Her voice possessed the mountain-shadowed lake. 

The rowers pulled lustily home through chill air. 

Luigi and Beppo were at the villa, both charged with 
news from Milan. Beppo claiming the right to speak first, 
which Luigi granted with a magnificent sweep of his hand, 
related that Captain Weisspriess, of the garrison, had 
wounded Count Medole in a duel severely. He brought 
a letter to Vittoria from Merthyr, in which Merthyr urged 
her to prevent Count Ammiani’s visiting Milan for any pur- 
pose whatever, and said that he was coming to be present at 
her marriage. She was reading this while Luigi delivered 
his burden ; which was, that in a subsequent duel, the slaugh- 
tering captain had killed little Leone Rufo, the gay and 
gallant boy, Carlo’s comrade, and her friend. 

Luigi laughed scornfully at his rival, and had edged away 
out of sight before he could be asked who had sent him. 
Beppo ignominiously confessed that he had not heard of this 
second duel. At midnight he was on horseback, bound for 
Milan, with a challenge to the captain from Carlo, who had a 
jealous fear that Luciano at Vercelli might have outstripped 
him. Carlo requested the captain to guarantee him an hour’s 
immunity in the city on a stated day, or to name any spot 


418 


VITTORIA 


on the borders of Piedmont for the meeting. The challenge 
was sent with Countess Ammiani’s approbation and Laura’s. 
Vittoria submitted. 

That done, Carlo gave up his heart to his bride. A fight 
in prospect was the hope of wholesome work after his late 
indecision and double play. They laughed at themselves, 
accused hotly, and humbly excused themselves, praying for 
mutual pardon. 

She had behaved badly in disobeying his mandate from 
Brescia. 

Yes, but had he not been over-imperious? 

True ; still she should have remembered her promise in 
the Yicentino. 

She did indeed; but how could she quit her wounded 
friend Merthyr? 

Perhaps not : then, why had she sent word to him from 
Milan that she would be at Pallanza? 

This question knocked at a sealed chamber. She was 
silent, and Carlo had to brood over something as well. He 
gave her hints of his foolish pique, his wrath and bitter 
baffled desire for her when, coming to Pallanza, he came to 
an empty house. But he could not help her to see, for he 
did not himself feel, that he had been spurred by silly pas- 
sions, pique, and wrath, to plunge instantly into new 
political intrigue; and that some of his worst faults had 
become mixed up with his devotion to his country. Had 
he taken Violetta for an ally in all purity of heart? The 
kiss he had laid on the woman’s sweet lips had shaken his 
absolute belief in that. He tried to set his brain travelling 
backward, in order to contemplate accurately the point of 
his original weakness. It being almost too severe a task 
for any young head, Carlo deemed it sufficient that he 
should say — and this he felt — that he was unworthy of 
his beloved. 

Could Vittoria listen to such stuff? She might have 
kissed him to stop the flow of it, but kissings were rare 
between them ; so rare, that when they had put mouth to 
mouth, a little quivering spire of flame, dim -at the base, 
stood to mark the spot in their memories. She moved her 
hand, as to throw aside such talk. Unfretful in blood, 
chaste and keen, she at least knew the foolishness of the 


ANNA OF LENKENSTEIN 


419 


common form of lovers’ trifling when there is a burning 
love to keep under, and Carlo saw that she did, and adored 
her for this highest proof of the passion of her love. 

“ In three days you will be mine, if I do not hear from 
Milan? within five, if I do?” he said. 

Vittoria gave him the whole beauty of her face a divine 
minute, and bowed it assenting. Carlo then led her to his 
mother, before whom he embraced her for the comfort of 
his mother’s heart. They decided that there should be no 
whisper of the marriage until the couple were one. Vittoria 
obtained the countess’s permission to write for Merthyr to 
attend her at the altar. She had seen Weisspriess fall in 
combat, and she had perfect faith in her lover’s right hand. 


CHAPTER XXXIX 

ANNA OF LENKENSTEIN 

Captain Weisspriess replied to Carlo Ammiani promptly, 
naming Camerlata by Como, as the place where he would 
meet him. 

He stated at the end of some temperate formal lines, that 
he had given Count Ammiani the preference over half-a- 
dozen competitors for the honour of measuring swords with 
him; but that his adversary must not expect him to be 
always ready to instruct the young gentlemen of the Lom- 
bardo- Venetian province in the arts of fence; and therefore 
he begged to observe, that his encounter with Count Am- 
miani would be the last occasion upon which he should hold 
himself bound to accept a challenge from Count Ammiani’s 
countrymen. 

It was quite possible, the captain said, drawing a familiar 
illustration from the gaming-table, to break the stoutest 
Bank in the world by a perpetual multiplication of your 
bets, and he was modest enough to remember that he was 
but one man against some thousands, to contend with all of 
whom would be exhausting. 

Consequently the captain desired Count Ammiani to pro- 
claim to his countrymen that the series of challenges must 


420 


VITTORIA 


terminate ; and he requested him to advertize the same in 
a Milanese, a Turin, and a Neapolitan journal. 

“I am not a butcher,” he concluded. “The task you 
inflict upon me is scarcely bearable. Call it by what name 
you will, it is having ten shots to one, which was generally 
considered an equivalent to murder. My sword is due to 
you, Count Ammiani ; and, as I know you to be an honour- 
able nobleman, I would rather you were fighting in Venice, 
though your cause is hopeless, than standing up to match 
yourself against me. Let me add, that I deeply respect 
the lady who is engaged to be united to you, and would not 
willingly cross steel either with her lover or her husband. 
I shall be at Camerlata at the time appointed. If I do not 
find you there, I shall understand that you have done me 
the honour to take my humble advice, and have gone where 
your courage may at least appear to have done better ser- 
vice. I shall sheathe my sword and say no more about it.” 

All of this, save the concluding paragraph, was written 
under the eyes of Countess Anna of Lenkenstein. 

He carried it to his quarters, where he appended the — 
as he deemed it — conciliatory passage: after which he 
handed it to Beppo, in a square of the barracks, with a 
buon’mano that Beppo received bowing, and tossed to an 
old decorated regimental dog of many wounds and a veteran’s 
gravity. For this offence a Styrian grenadier seized him 
by the shoulders, lifting him off his feet and swinging him 
easily, while the dog arose from his contemplation of the 
coin and swayed an expectant tail. The Styrian had dashed 
Beppo to earth before Weisspriess could interpose, and the 
dog had got him by the throat. In the struggle Beppo tore 
off the dog’s medal for distinguished conduct on the field of 
battle. He restored it as soon as he was free, and won 
unanimous plaudits from officers and soldiers for his kindly 
thoughtfulness and the pretty manner with which he dropped 
on one knee, and assuaged the growls, and attached the medal 
to the old dog’s neck. Weisspriess walked away. Beppo 
then challenged his Styrian to fight. The case was laid 
before a couple of sergeants, who shook their heads on hear- 
ing his condition to be that of a serving-man. The Styrian 
was ready to waive considerations of superiority; but the 
judges pronounced their veto. A soldier in the Imperial 


ANNA OF LENKENSTEIN 


421 


Royal service, though he was merely a private in the ranks, 
could not accept a challenge from civilians below the rank 
of notary, secretary, hotel- or inn-keeper, and such-like : ser- 
vants and tradesmen he must seek to punish in some other 
way; and they also had their appeal to his commanding 
officer. So went the decision of the military tribunal, until 
the Styrian, having contrived to make Beppo understand, 
by the agency of a single Italian verb, that he wanted a 
blow, Beppo spun about and delivered a stinging smack on 
the Styrian’s cheek; which altered the view of the case, 
for, under peculiar circumstances — supposing that he did 
not choose to cut him down — a soldier might condescend 
to challenge his civilian inferiors: “in our regiment, ” said 
the sergeants, meaning that they had relaxed the stringency 
of their laws. 

Beppo met his Styrian outside the city walls, and laid 
him flat. He declined to fight a second; but it was repre- 
sented to him, by the aid of an interpreter, that the officers 
of the garrison were subjected to successive challenges, and 
that the first trial of his skill might have been nothing finer 
than luck; and besides, his adversary had a right to call 
a champion. “We all do it,” the soldiers assured him. 
“How your blood’s up you’re ready for a dozen of us;” 
which was less true of a constitution that was quicker in 
expending its heat. He stood out against a young fellow 
almost as limber as himself, much taller, and longer in the 
reach, by whom he was quickly disabled with cuts on thigh 
and head. Seeing this easy victory over him, the soldiers, 
previously quite civil, cursed him for having got the better 
of their fallen comrade, and went off discussing how he had 
done the trick, leaving him to lie there. A peasant carried 
him to a small suburban inn, where he remained several 
days oppressed horribly by a sense that he had forgotten 
something. When he recollected what it was, he entrusted 
the captain’s letter to his landlady; — a good woman, but 
she chanced to have a scamp of a husband, who snatched it 
from her and took it to his market. Beppo supposed the 
letter to be on its way to Pallanza, when it was in General 
Schoneck’s official desk; and soon after the breath of a 
scandalous rumour began to circulate. 

Captain Weisspriess had gone down to Camerlata, accom- 


422 


VITTORIA 


panied by a Colonel Volpo, of an Anstro-Italian regiment, 
and by Lieutenant Jenna. At Camerlata a spectacled officer, 
Major Nagen, joined them. Weisspriess was the less pleased 
with his company on hearing that he had come to witness 
the meeting, in obedience to an express command of a per- 
son who was interested in it. Jenna was the captain’s 
friend: Yolpo was seconding him for the purpose of getting 
Count Ammiani to listen to reason from the mouth of a 
countryman. There could be no doubt in the captain’s 
mind that this Major Nagen was Countess Anna’s spy as 
well as his rival, and he tried to be rid of him ; but in ad- 
dition to the shortness of sight which was Nagen’s plea 
for pushing his thin transparent nose into every corner, he 
enjoyed at will an intermittent deafness, and could hear 
anything without knowing of it. Brother officers said of 
Major Nagen that he was occasionally equally senseless in 
the nose, which had been tweaked without disturbing the 
repose of his features. He waited half-an-hour on the 
ground after the appointed time, and then hurried to Milan. 
Weisspriess waited an hour. Satisfied that Count Ammiani 
was not coming, he exacted from Yolpo and from Jenna 
their word of honour as Austrian officers that they would 
forbear to cast any slur on the courage of his adversary, and 
would be so discreet on the subject as to imply that the duel 
was a drawn affair. They pledged themselves accordingly. 
“ There’s Nagen, it’s true,” said Weisspriess, as a man will 
say and feel that he has done his best to prevent a thing 
inevitable. 

Milan, and some of the journals of Milan, soon had Carlo 
Ammiani’ s name up for challenging Weisspriess and failing 
to keep his appointment. It grew to be discussed as a 
tremendous event. The captain received fifteen challenges 
within two days; among these a second one from Luciano 
Bomara, whom he was beginning to have a strong desire to 
encounter. He repressed it, as quondam drunkards fight 
off the whisper of their lips for liquor. “No more blood,” 
was his constant inward cry. He wanted peace ; but as he 
also wanted Countess Anna of Lenkenstein and her estates, 
it may possibly be remarked of him that what he wanted he 
did not want to pay for. 

At this period Wilfrid had resumed the Austrian uniform 


ANNA OF LENKENSTEIN 


423 


as a common soldier in the ranks of the Kinsky regiment. 
General Schoneck had obtained the privilege for him from 
the Marshal, General Pierson refusing to lift a finger on his 
behalf. Nevertheless the uncle was not sorry to hear the 
tale of his nephew’s exploits during the campaign, or of the 
eccentric intrepidity of the white umbrella; and both to 
please him, and to intercede for Wilfrid, the latter’s old 
comrades recited his deeds as a part of the treasured fami- 
liar history of the army in its late arduous struggle. 

General Pierson was chiefly anxious to know whether 
Countess Lena would be willing to give her hand to Wilfrid 
in the event of his restoration to his antecedent position in 
the army. He found her extremely excited about Carlo 
Ammiani, her old playmate, and once her dear friend. She 
would not speak of Wilfrid at all. To appease the chival- 
rous little woman, General Pierson hinted that his nephew, 
being under the protection of General Schoneck, might get 
some intelligence from that officer. Lena pretended to reject 
the notion of her coming into communication with Wilfrid 
for any earthly purpose. She said to herself, however, that 
her object was pre-eminently unselfish ; and as the General 
pointedly refused to serve her in a matter that concerned an 
Italian nobleman, she sent directions to Wilfrid to go before 
General Schoneck the moment he was off duty, and ask his 
assistance, in her name, to elucidate the mystery of Count 
Ammiani’s behaviour. The answer was a transmission of 
Captain Weisspriess’s letter to Carlo. Lena caused the 
fact of this letter having missed its way to be circulated in 
the journals, and then she carried it triumphantly to her 
sister, saying : — 

“ There! I knew these reports were a base calumny.” 

“Reports, to what effect?” said Anna. 

“ That Carlo Ammiani had slunk from a combat with your 
duellist.” 

“ Oh ! I knew that myself, ” Anna remarked. 

“You were the loudest in proclaiming it.” 

“Because I intend to ruin him.” 

“Carlo Ammiani? What has he done to you?” 

Anna’s eyes had fallen on the additional lines of the letter 
which she had not dictated. She frowned and exclaimed : — 

“What is this? Does the man play me false? Read 


424 


VITTORIA 


those lines, Lena, and tell me, does the man mean to fight in 
earnest who can dare to write them? He advises Ammiani 
to go to Venice. It’s treason, if it is not cowardice. And 
see here — he has the audacity to say that he deeply respects 
the lady Ammiani is going to marry. Is Ammiani going 
to marry her? I think not.” 

Anna dashed the letter to the floor. 

“But I will make use of what’s within my reach,” she 
said, picking it up. 

“ Carlo Ammiani will marry her, I presume, ” said Lena. 

“Not before he has met Captain Weisspriess, who, by the 
way, has obtained his majority. And, Lena, my dear, write 
to inform him that we wish to offer him our congratulations. 
He will be a General officer in good time.” 

“Perhaps you forget that Count Ammiani is a perfect 
swordsman, Anna.” 

“Weisspriess remembers it for me, perhaps; — is that 
your idea, Lena?” 

“He might do so profitably. You have thrown him on 
two swords.” 

“Merely to provoke the third. He is invincible. If he 
were not, where would his use be?” 

“Oh, how I loathe revenge! ” cried Lena. 

“You cannot love!” her sister retorted. “That woman 
calling herself Vittoria Campa shall suffer. She has injured 
and defied me. How was it that she behaved to us at 
Meran? She is mixed up with assassins; she is insolent 
— a dark-minded slut; and she catches stupid men. My 
brother, my country, and this weak Weisspriess, as I saw 
him lying in the Ultenthal, cry out against her. I have 
no sleep. I am not revengeful. Say it, say it, all of you! 
but I am not. I am not unforgiving. I worship justice, 
and a black deed haunts me. Let the wicked be contrite 
and wasted in tears, and I think I can pardon them. But I 
will have them on their knees. I hate that woman Vittoria 
more than I hate Angelo Guidascarpi. Look, Lena. If both 
were begging for life to me, I would send him to the gallows 
and her to her bedchamber ; and all because I worship jus- 
tice, and believe it to be the weapon of the good and pious. 
You have a baby’s heart; so has Karl. He declines to 
second Weisspriess; he will have nothing to do with duel- 


ANNA OF LENKENSTEIN 


425 


ling; he would behold his sisters mocked in the streets, 
and pass on. He talks of Paul’s death like a priest. Priests 
are worthy men; a great resource! Give me a priest’s lap 
when I need it. Shall I be condemned to go to the priest 
and leave that woman singing? If I did, I might well say 
the world’s a snare, a sham, a pitfall, a horror! It’s 
what I don’t think in any degree. It’s what you think, 
though. Yes, whenever you are vexed you think it. So 
do the priests, and so do all who will not exert themselves 
to chastise. I, on the contrary, know that the world is not 
made up of nonsense. Write to Weisspriess immediately; 
I must have him here in an hour.” 

Weisspriess, on visiting the ladies to receive their con- 
gratulations, was unprepared for the sight of his letter to 
Carlo Ammiani, which Anna thrust before him after he had 
saluted her, bidding him read it aloud. He perused it in 
silence. He was beginning to be afraid of his mistress. 

“ I called you Austria once, for you were always ready, ” 
Anna said, and withdrew from him, that the sting of her 
words might take effect. 

“ God knows, I have endeavoured to earn the title in my 
humble way,” Weisspriess appealed to Lena. 

“Yes, Major Weisspriess, you have,” she said. “Be 
Austria still, and forbear toward these people as much as 
you can. To beat them is enough, in my mind. I am 
rejoiced that you have not met Count Ammiani, for if you 
had, two friends of mine, equally dear and equally skilful, 
would have held their lives at one another’s mercy.” 

“Equally! ” said Weisspriess, and pulled out the length 
of his moustache. 

“ Equally courageous,” Lena corrected herself. “ I never 
distrusted Count Ammiani’ s courage, nor could distrust 
yours.” 

“Equally dear!” Weisspriess tried to direct a concen- 
trated gaze on her. 

Lena evaded an answer by speaking of the rumour of 
Count Ammiani’s marriage. 

Weisspriess was thinking with all the sagacious penetra- 
tion of the military mind, that perhaps this sister was trying 
to tell him that she would be willing to usurp the place of 
the other in his affections; and if so, why should she not? 


426 


VITT0R1A 


“ I may cherish the idea that I am dear to yon, Countess 
Lena?” 

“ When you are formally betrothed to my sister, you will 
know you are very dear to me, Major Weisspriess.” 

“But,” said he, perceiving his error, “ how many persons 
am I to call out before she will consent to a formal be- 
trothal?” 

Lena was half smiling at the little tentative bit of senti- 
ment she had so easily turned aside. Her advice to him 
was to refuse to fight, seeing that he had done sufficient for 
glory and his good name. 

He mentioned Major Hagen as a rival. 

Upon this she said: “Hear me one minute. I was in 
my sister’s bed-room on the first night when she knew of 
your lying wounded in the Ultenthal. She told you just 
now that she called you Austria. She adores our Austria 
in you. The thought that you had been vanquished seemed 
like our Austria vanquished, and she is so strong for Austria 
that it is really out of her power to fancy you as defeated 
without suspecting foul play. So when she makes you 
fight, she thinks you safe. Many are to go down because 
you have gone down. Do you not see? And now, Major 
Weisspriess, I need not expose my sister to you any 
more, I hope, or depreciate Major Hagen for your satis- 
faction.” 

Weisspriess had no other interview with Anna for several 
days. She shunned him openly. Her carriage moved off 
when he advanced to meet her at the parade, or review of 
arms ; and she did not scruple to speak in public with Major 
Hagen, in the manner of those who have begun to speak 
together in private. The offender received his punishment 
gracefully, as men will who have been, taught that it flatters 
them. He refused every challenge. From Carlo Ammiani 
there came not a word. 

It would have been a deadly lull to any fiery temperament 
engaged in plotting to destroy a victim, but Anna had the 
patience of hatred — that absolute malignity which can 
measure its exultation rather by the gathering of its power 
to harm than by striking. She could lay it aside, or sink 
it to the bottom of her emotions, at will, when circumstances 
appeared against it. And she could do this without fretful 


ANNA OF LENKENSTEIN 


427 


regrets, without looking to the future. The spirit of her 
hatred extracted its own nourishment from things, like an 
organized creature. When foiled she became passive, and 
she enjoyed — forced herself compliantly to enjoy — her 
redoubled energy of hatred voluptuously, if ever a turn in 
events made wreck of her scheming. She hated Yittoria 
for many reasons, all of them vague within her bosom be- 
cause the source of them was indefinite and lay in the fact 
of her having come into collision with an opposing nature, 
whose rivalry was no visible rivalry, whose triumph was an 
ignorance of scorn — a woman who attracted all men, who 
scattered injuries with insolent artlessness, who never 
appealed to forgiveness, and was a low-born woman daring 
to be proud. By repute Anna was implacable, but she had, 
and knew she had, the capacity for magnanimity of a certain 
kind; and her knowledge of the existence of this unsus- 
pected fund within her justified in some degree her reck- 
less efforts to pull her enemy down on her knees. It seemed 
doubly right that she should force Yittoria to penitence, as 
being good for the woman, and an end that exonerated her 
own private sins committed to effect it. 

Yet she did not look clearly forward to the day of Yit- 
toria’s imploring for mercy. She had too many vexations 
to endure: she was an insufficient schemer, and was too 
frequently thwarted to enjoy that ulterior prospect. Her 
only servile instruments were Major Nagen, and Irma, who 
came to her from the Yilla Ricciardi, hot to do her rival any 
deadly injury; but though willing to attempt much, these 
were apparently able to perform little more than the menial 
work of vengeance. Major Nagen wrote in the name of 
Weisspriess to Count Ammiani, appointing a second meet- 
ing at Como, and stating that he would be at the villa of 
the Duchess of Graatli there. Weisspriess was unsuspect- 
ingly taken down to the place by Anna and Lena. There 
was a gathering of such guests as the duchess alone among 
her countrywomen could assemble, under the patronage of 
the conciliatory Government, and the duchess projected to 
give a series of brilliant entertainments in the saloons of 
the Union, as she named her house-roof. Count Serabig- 
lione arrived, as did numerous Moderates and priest-party 
men, Milanese garrison officers and others. Laura Piaveni 


428 


YITTORIA 


travelled with Countess d’Isorella and the happy Adela 
Sedley, from Lago Maggiore. 

Laura came, as she cruelly told her friend, for the pur- 
pose of making Yittoria’s excuses to the duchess. “ Why 
can she not come herself?” Amalia persisted in asking, 
and began to be afflicted with womanly curiosity. Laura 
would do nothing but shrug and smile, and repeat her mes- 
sage. A little after sunset, when the saloons were lighted, 
Weisspriess, sitting by his Countess Anna’s side, had a slip 
of paper placed in his hands by one of the domestics. He 
quitted his post frowning with astonishment, and muttered 
once, “ My appointment! ” Laura noticed that Anna’s heavy 
eyelids lifted to shoot an expressive glance at Violetta 
d’Isorella. She said: “ Can that have been anything hos- 
tile, do you suppose?” and glanced slyly at her friend. 

“No, no,” said Amalia; “the misunderstanding is ex- 
plained, and Major Weisspriess is just as ready as Count 
Ammiani to listen to reason. Besides, Count Ammiani is 
not so unfriendly but that if he came so near he would come 
up to me, surely.” 

Laura brought Amalia’s observation to bear upon Anna 
and Violetta by turning pointedly from one to the other as 
she said : “ As for reason, perhaps you have chosen the word. 
If Count Ammiani attended an appointment this time, he 
would be unreasonable.” 

A startled “Why?” leaped from Anna’s lips. She red- 
dened at her impulsive clumsiness. 

Laura raised her shoulders slightly : “ Do you not know? ” 
The expression of her face reproved Violetta, as for remiss- 
ness in transmitting secret intelligence. “ You can answer 
why, countess,” she addressed the latter, eager to exercise 
her native love of conflict with this doubtfully-faithful 
countrywoman; — the Austrian could feel that she had 
beaten her on the essential point, and afford to give her any 
number of dialectical victories. 

“I really cannot answer why,” Violetta said; “unless 
Count Ammiani is, as I venture to hope, better employed.” 

“But the answer is charming and perfect,” said Laura. 

“Enigmatical answers are declared to be so when they 
come from us women,” the duchess remarked; “but then, I 
fancy, women must not be the hearers, or they will confess 


ANNA OF LENKENSTEIN 


429 


that they are just as much bewildered and irritated as I 
am. Do speak out, my dearest. How is he better em- 
ployed?” 

Laura passed her eyes around the group of ladies. “ If 
any hero of yours had won the woman he loves, he would 
be right in thinking it folly to be bound by the invitation 
to fight, or feast, or what you will, within a space of three 
months or so; do you not agree with me?” 

The different emotions on many visages made the scene 
curious. 

“ Count Ammiani has married her ! ” exclaimed the 
duchess. 

“ My old friend Carlo is really married ! ” said Lena. 

Anna stared at Violetta. 

The duchess, recovering from her wonder, confirmed the 
news by saying that she now knew why M. Powys had left 
Milan in haste, three or four days previously, as she was 
aware that the bride had always wished him to be present 
at the ceremony of her marriage. 

“Signora, may I ask you, were you present?” Violetta 
addressed Laura. 

“ I will answer most honestly that I was not, ” said Laura. 

“The marriage was a secret one, perhaps?” 

“Even for friends, you see.” 

“Necessarily, no doubt,” Lena said, with an idea of eas- 
ing her sister’s stupefaction by a sarcasm foreign to her 
sentiments. 

Adela Sedley, later in exactly comprehending what had 
been spoken, glanced about for some one who would not be 
unsympathetic to her exclamation, and suddenly beheld her 
brother entering the room with Weisspriess. “Wilfrid! 
Wilfrid! do you know she is married?” 

“So they tell me,” Wilfrid replied, while making his 
bow to the duchess. He was much broken in appearance, 
but wore his usual collected manner. Who had told him 
of the marriage? A person downstairs, he said; not Count 
Ammiani; not signor Balderini; no one whom he saw 
present, no one whom he knew. 

“A very mysterious person,” said the duchess. 

“Then it’s true after all,” cried Laura. “I did but guess 
it.” She assured Violetta that she had only guessed it. 


430 


VITTORIA 


“Does Major Weisspriess know it to be true? ” The ques- 
tion came from Anna. 

Weisspriess coolly verified it, on the faith of a common 
servant’s communication. 

The ladies could see that some fresh piece of mystery lay 
between him and Wilfrid. 

“With whom have you had an interview, and what 
have you heard?” asked Lena, vexed by Wilfrid’s pallid 
cheeks. 

Both men stammered and protested, out of conceit, and 
were as foolish as men are when pushed to play at mutual 
concealment. 

The duchess’s chasseur, Jacob Baumwalder Feckelwitz, 
stepped up to his mistress and whispered discreetly. She 
gazed straight at Laura. After hestitation she shook her 
head, and the chasseur retired. Amalia then came to the 
rescue of the unhappy military wits that were standing a 
cross-fire of sturdy interrogation. 

“ Do you not perceive what it is ? ” she said to Anna. 
“Major Weisspriess meets Private Pierson at the door of 
my house, and forgets that he is well-born and my guest. 
I may be revolutionary, but I declare that in plain clothes 
Private Pierson is the equal of Major Weisspriess. If 
bravery made men equals, who would be Herr Pierson’s 
superior ? He has done me the honour, at a sacrifice of his 
pride, I am sure, to come here and meet his sister, and 
rejoice me with his society. Major Weisspriess, if I under- 
stand the case correctly, you are greatly to blame.” 

“ I beg to assert,” Weisspriess was saying as the duchess 
turned her shoulder on him. 

“ There is really no foundation,” Wilfrid began, with 
similar simplicity. 

“ What will sharpen the wits of these soldiers ! ” the 
duchess murmured dolefully to Laura. 

“But Major Weisspriess was called out of his room by a 
message — was that from Private Pierson ? ” said Anna. 

“ Assuredly ; I should presume so,” the duchess answered 
for them. 

“Ay; undoubtedly,” Weisspriess supported her. 

“Then,” Laura smiled encouragement to Wilfrid, “you 
know nothing of Count Ammiani’s marriage after all ? ” 


ANNA OF LENKENSTE1N 431 

Wilfrid launched his reply on a sharp repression of his 
breath, “ Nothing whatever.” 

“ And the common servant’s communication was not made 
to you ? ” Anna interrogated Weisspriess. 

“ I simply followed in the track of Pierson,” said that 
officer, masking his retreat from the position with a duck of 
his head and a smile, tooth on lip. 

“How could you ever suppose, child, that a common 
servant would be sent to deliver such tidings ? and to 
Major Weisspriess ! ” the duchess interposed. 

This broke up the Court of inquiry. 

Weisspriess shortly after took his leave, on the plea that 
he wished to prove his friendliness by accompanying Private 
Pierson, who had to be on duty early next day in Milan. 
Amalia had seen him breaking from Anna in extreme 
irritation, and he had only to pledge his word that he was 
really bound for Milan to satisfy her. “ I believe you to be 
at heart humane,” she said meaningly. 

“Duchess, you may be sure that I would not kill an 
enemy save on the point of my sword,” he answered her. 

“You are a gallant man,” said Amalia, and pride was in 
her face as she looked on him. 

She willingly consented to Wilfrid’s sudden departure, as 
it was evident that some shot had hit him hard. 

On turning to Laura, the duchess beheld an aspect of such 
shrewd disgust that she was provoked to exclaim : “ What 
on earth is the matter now ? ” 

Laura would favour her with no explanation until they 
were alone in the duchess’s boudoir, when she said that to 
call Weisspriess a gallant man was an instance of unblush- 
ing adulation of brutal strength: “Gallant for slaying a 
boy ? Gallant because he has force of wrist ? ” 

“ Yes ; gallant ; — an honour to his countrymen : and an 
example to some of yours,” Amalia rejoined. 

“ See,” cried Laura, “ to what a degeneracy your excess of 
national sentiment reduces you ! ” 

While she was flowing on, the duchess leaned a hand 
across her shoulder, and smiling kindly, said she would not 
allow her to utter words that she would have to eat. “ You 
saw my chasseur step up to me this evening, my Laura ? 
Well, not to torment you, he wished to sound an alarm cry 


432 


VITTORIA 


after Angelo Guidascarpi. I believe my conjecture is cor- 
rect, that Angelo Guidascarpi was seen by Major Weisspriess 
below, and allowed to pass free. Have you no remark to 
make ? ” 

“None,” said Laura. 

“ You cannot admit that he behaved like a gallant man ? ” 
Laura sighed deeply. “Perhaps it was well for you to 
encourage him ! ” 

The mystery of Angelo’s interview with Weisspriess was 
cleared the next night, when in the midst of a ball-room’s 
din, Aennchen, Amalia’s favourite maid, brought a letter 
to Laura from Countess Ammiani. These were the con- 
tents : — 

“Dearest Signora, 

“You now learn a new and blessed thing. God 
make the marriage fruitful ! I have daughter as well as 
son. Our Carlo still hesitated, for hearing of the disgrace- 
ful rumours in Milan, he fancied a duty lay there for him to 
do. Another menace came to my daughter from the mad- 
man Barto Bizzo. God can use madmen to bring about the 
heavenly designs. We decided that Carlo’s name should 
cover her. My son was like a man who has awakened up. 
M. Powys was our good genius. He told her that he had 
promised you to bring it about. He, and Angelo, and 
myself, were the witnesses. So much before heaven! I 
crossed the lake with them to Stresa. I was her tirewoman, 
with Giacinta, to whom I will give a husband for the tears 
of joy she dropped upon the bed. Blessed be it! I placed 
my daughter in my Carlo’s arms. Both kissed their mother 
at parting. 

“ This is something fixed. I had great fears during the 
war. You do not yet know what it is to have a sonless son 
in peril. Terror and remorse haunted me for having sent 
the last Ammiani out to those fields, unattached to posterity. 

“ An envelope from Milan arrived on the morning of his 
nuptials. It was intercepted by me. The German made a 
second appointment at Como. Angelo undertook to assist 
me in saving my son’s honour. So my Carlo had nothing to 
disturb his day. Pray with me, Laura Piaveni, that the 
day and the night of it may prove fresh springs of a river 


ANNA OF LENKENSTEIN 


433 


that shall pass our name through the happier mornings 
of Italy ! I commend you to God, my dear, and am your 
friend, 

“MarCELLINA, COUNTESS AmMIANI. 

“P.S. Countess Alessandra will be my daughter’s name.” 

The letter was read and re-read before the sweeter burden 
it contained would allow Laura to understand that Countess 
Ammiani had violated a seal and kept a second hostile 
appointment hidden from her son. 

“ Amalia, you detest me,” she said, when they had left the 
guests for a short space, and the duchess had perused the 
letter, “ but acknowledge Angelo Guidascarpi’s devotion. 
He came here in the midst of you Germans, at the risk of 
his life, to offer battle for his cousin.” 

The duchess, however, had much more to say for the mag- 
nanimity of Major Weisspriess, who, if he saw him, had 
spared him; she compelled Laura to confess that Weiss- 
priess must have behaved with some nobleness, which Laura 
did, humming and ‘ brumming,’ and hinting at the experience 
he had gained of Angelo’s skill. Her naughtiness provoked 
first, and then affected Amalia ; in this mood the duchess 
had the habit of putting on a grand air of pitying sadness. 
Laura knew it well, and never could make head against it. 
She wavered, as a stray floating thing detached from an eddy 
whirls and passes on the flood. Close on Amalia’s bosom she 
sobbed out: “Yes; you Austrians have good qualities — 
some : many ! but you choose to think us mean because we 
can’t readily admit them when we are under your heels. 
Just see me; what a crumb feeds me! I am crying with 
delight at a marriage ! ” 

The duchess clasped her fondly. 

“ It’s not often one gets you so humble, my Laura.” 

“ I am crying with delight at a marriage ! Amalia, look 
at me : you would suppose it a mighty triumph. A mar- 
riage ! — two little lovers lying cheek to cheek ! and me 
blessing heaven for its goodness ! and there may be dead 
men unburied still on the accursed Custozza hill-top ! ” 

Amalia let her weep. The soft affection which the 
duchess bore to her was informed with a slight touch of 
envy of a complexion that could be torn with tears one 


434 


VITTORIA 


minute, and the next be fit to show in public. No other 
thing made her regard her friend as a southern — that is, a 
foreign — woman. 

“ Be patient,” Laura said. 

“ Cry ; you need not be restrained,” said Amalia. 

“ You sighed.” 

“ No!” 

“ A sort of sigh. My fit’s over. Carlo’s marriage is too 
surprising and delicious. I shall be laughing presently. I 
hinted at his marriage — I thought it among the list of 
possible things, no more — to see if that crystal pool, called 
Violetta d’Isorella, could be discoloured by stirring. Did 
you watch her face ? I don’t know what she wanted with 
Carlo, for she’s cold as poison — a female trifler ; one of those 
women whom I, and I have a chaste body, despise as worse 
than wantons; but she certainly did not want him to be 
married. It seems like a victory — though we’re beaten. 
You have beaten us, my dear ! ” 

“ My darling ! it is your husband kisses you,” said Amalia, 
kissing Laura’s forehead from a full heart. 




CHAPTER. XL 

THROUGH THE WINTER 

Weisspriess and Wilfrid made their way toward Milan 
together, silently smoking, after one attempt at conversa- 
tion, which touched on Vittoria’s marriage ; but when they 
reached Monza the officer slapped his degraded brother in 
arms upon the shoulder, and asked him whether he had any 
inclination to crave permission to serve in Hungary. Eor 
his own part, Weisspriess said that he should quit Italy at 
once ; he had here to skewer the poor devils, one or two 
weekly, or to play the mightily generous ; in short, to do 
things unsoldierly ; and he was desirous of getting away 
from the country. General Schoneck was at Monza, and 
might arrange the matter for them both. Promotion was to 
be looked for in Hungary ; the application would please the 
General; one battle would restore the lieutenant’s star to 


THROUGH THE WINTER 


435 


Wilfrid’s collar. Wilfrid, who had been offended by his 
companion’s previous brooding silence, nodded briefly, and 
they stopped at Monza, where they saw General Schoneck 
in the morning, and Wilfrid being by extraordinary favour 
in civilian’s dress during his leave of absence, they were 
jointly invited to the General’s table at noon, though not 
to meet any other officer. General Schoneck agreed with 
Weisspriess that Hungary would be a better field for 
Wilfrid ; said he would do his utmost to serve them in the 
manner they wished, and dismissed them after the second 
cigar. They strolled about the city, glad for reasons of 
their own to be out of Milan as long as the leave permitted. 
At night, when they were passing a palace in one of the 
dark streets, a feather, accompanied by a sharp sibilation 
from above, dropped on Wilfrid’s face. Weisspriess held 
the feather up, and judged by its length that it was an 
eagle’s, and therefore belonging to the Hungarian Hussar 
regiment stationed in Milan. “ The bird’s aloft,” he 
remarked. His voice aroused a noise of feet that was 
instantly still. He sent a glance at the doorways, where he 
thought he discerned men. Fetching a whistle in with his 
breath, he unsheathed his sword, and seeing that Wilfrid 
had no weapon, he pushed him to a gate of the palace-court 
that had just cautiously turned a hinge. Wilfrid found his 
hand taken by a woman’s hand inside. The gate closed 
behind him. He was led up to an apartment where, by the 
light of a darkly-veiled lamp, he beheld a young Hungarian 
officer and a lady clinging to his neck, praying him not to 
go forth. Her Italian speech revealed how matters stood in 
this house. The officer accosted Wilfrid : “ But you are not 
one of us ! ” He repeated it to the lady : “ You see, the 
man is not one of us ! ” 

She assured him that she had seen the uniform when she 
dropped the feather, and wept protesting it. 

“ Louis, Louis ! why did you come to-night ! why did I 
make you come ! You will be slain. I had my warning, 
but I was mad.” 

The officer hushed her with a quick squeeze of her inter- 
twisted fingers. 

“ Are you the man to take a sword and be at my back, 
sir ? ” he said ; and resumed in a manner less contemptuous 


436 


VITTORIA 


toward the civil costume : “ I request it for the sole purpose 
of quieting this lady’s fears.” 

Wilfrid explained who and what he was. On hearing 
that he was General Pierson’s nephew the officer laughed 
cheerfully, and lifted the veil from the lamp, by which 
Wilfrid knew him to be Colonel Prince Radocky, a most 
gallant and the handsomest cavalier in the Imperial service. 
Radocky laughed again when he was told of Weisspriess 
keeping guard below. 

“ Aha ! we are three, and can fight like a pyramid.” 

He flourished his hand above the lady’s head, and called 
for a sword. The lady affected to search for one while he 
stalked up and down in the jaunty fashion of a Magyar 
horseman ; but the sword was not to be discovered without 
his assistance, and he was led away in search of it. The 
moment he was alone Wilfrid burst into tears. He could 
bear anything better than the sight of fondling lovers. 
When they rejoined him, Radocky had evidently yielded 
some point ; he stammered and worked his underlip on his 
moustache. The lady undertook to speak for him. Happily 
for her, she said, Wilfrid would not compromise her ; and 
taking her lover’s hand, she added with Italian mixture of 
wit and grace : — 

“ Happily for me, too, he does. The house is surrounded 
by enemies ; it is a reign of terror for women. I am dead, 
if they slay him ; but if they recognize him, I am lost.” 

Wilfrid readily leaped to her conclusion. He offered 
his opera-hat and civil mantle to Radocky, who departed 
in them, leaving his military cloak in exchange. During 
breathless seconds the lady hung kneeling at the window. 
When the gate opened there was a noise as of feet pre- 
paring to rush; Weisspriess uttered an astonished cry, 
but addressed Radocky as “ my Pierson ! ” lustily and fre- 
quently ; and was heard putting a number of meaningless 
questions, laughing and rallying Pierson till the two passed 
out of hearing unmolested. The lady then kissed a Cross 
passionately, and shivered Wilfrid’s manhood by asking 
him whether he knew what love was. She went on : — 

“ Never, never love a married woman! It’s a past prac- 
tice. Never ! Thrust a spike in the palm of your hand, 
drink scalding oil, rather than do that.” 


THROUGH THE WINTER 


437 


“ The Prince Radocky is now safe,” Wilfrid said. 

“ Yes, he is safe ; and he is there, and I am here : and I 
cannot follow him ; and when will he come to me ? ” 

The tones were lamentable. She struck her forehead, 
after she had mutely thrust her hand to right and left to 
show the space separating her from her lover. 

Her voice changed when she accepted Wilfrid’s adieux, 
to whose fate in the deadly street she appeared quite 
indifferent, though she gave him one or two prudent direc- 
tions, and expressed a hope that she might be of service 
to him. 

He was set upon as soon as he emerged from the gate- 
way; the cavalry cloak was torn from his back, and but 
for the chance circumstance of his swearing in English, 
he would have come to harm. A chill went through his 
blood on hearing one of his assailants speak the name 
of Barto Rizzo. The English oath stopped an arm that 
flashed a dagger half its length. Wilfrid obeyed a com- 
mand to declare his name, his country, and his rank. “ It’s 
not the prince ! it’s not the Hungarian ! ” went many whis- 
pers; and he was drawn away by a man who requested 
him to deliver his reasons for entering the palace, and who 
appeared satisfied by Wilfrid’s ready mixture of invention 
and fact. But the cloak ! Wilfrid stated boldly that the 
cloak was taken by him from the Duchess of Gra&tli’s at 
Como ; that he had seen a tall Hussar officer slip it off his 
shoulders; that he had wanted a cloak, and had appro- 
priated it. He had entered the gate of the palace because 
of a woman’s hand that plucked at the skirts of this very 
cloak. 

“I saw you enter,” said the man; “do that no more. 
We will not have the blood of Italy contaminated — do 
you hear ? While that half- Austrian Medole is tip-toeing 
’twixt Milan and Turin, we watch over his honour, to set 
an example to our women and your officers. You have 
outwitted us to-night. Off with you ! ” 

Wilfrid was twirled and pushed through the crowd till 
he got free of them. He understood very well that they 
were magnanimous rascals who could let an accomplice go, 
though they would have driven steel into the principal. 

Nothing came of this adventure for some time. Wilfrid’s 


438 


VITTORIA 


reflections (apart from the horrible hard truth of Vittoria’s 
marriage, against which he dashed his heart perpetually, 
almost asking for anguish) had leisure to examine the singu- 
larity of his feeling a commencement of pride in the clasping 
of his musket ; — he who on the first day of his degradation 
had planned schemes to stick the bayonet-point between his 
breast-bones : he thought as well of the queer woman’s way 
in Countess Medole’s adjuration to him that he should never 
love a married woman ; — in her speaking, as it seemed, on 
his behalf, when it was but an outcry of her own acute 
wound. Did he love a married woman ? He wanted to see 
one married woman for the last time ; to throw a frightful 
look on her ; to be sublime in scorn of her ; perhaps to love 
her all the better for the cruel pain, in the expectation of 
being consoled. While doing duty as a military machine, 
these were the pictures in his mind; and so well did his 
routine drudgery enable him to bear them, that when he 
heard from General Schoneck that the term of his degrada- 
tion was to continue in Italy, and from his sister that Gen- 
eral Pierson refused to speak of him or hear of him until 
he had regained his gold shoulder-strap, he revolted her 
with an ejaculation of gladness, and swore brutally that 
he desired to have no advancement ; nothing but sleep and 
drill ; and, he added conscientiously, Havannah cigars. “ He 
has grown to be like a common soldier,” Adela said to her- 
self with an amazed contemplation of the family tie. Still, 
she worked on his behalf, having, as every woman has, too 
strong an instinct as to what is natural to us to believe com- 
pletely in any eccentric assertion. She carried the tale of 
his grief and trials and his romantic devotion to the Imperial 
flag, daily to Countess Lena ; persisting, though she could 
not win a responsive look from Lena’s face. 

One day on the review-ground, Wilfrid beheld Prince 
Eadocky bending from his saddle in conversation with 
Weisspriess. The prince galloped up to General Pierson, 
and stretched his hand to where Wilfrid was posted as 
marker to a wheeling column, kept the hand stretched out, 
and spoke furiously, and followed the General till he was 
ordered to head his regiment. Wilfrid began to hug his 
musket less desperately. Little presents — feminine he 
knew by the perfumes floating round them — gloves and 


THROUGH THE WINTER 


439 


cigars, fine handkerchiefs, and silks for wear, came to his 
barracks. He pretended to accuse his sister of sending 
them. She in honest delight accused Lena. Lena then 
accused herself of not having done so. 

It was winter: Yittoria had been seen in Milan. Both 
Lena and Wilfrid spontaneously guessed her to be the guilty 
one. He made a funeral pyre of the gifts and gave his sister 
the ashes, supposing that she had guessed with the same 
spirited intuition. It suited Adela to relate this lover’s per- 
formance to Lena. “ He did well ! ” Lena said, and kissed 
Adela for the first time. Adela was the bearer of friendly 
messages to the poor private in the ranks. From her and 
from little Jenna, Wilfrid heard that he was unforgotten by 
Countess Lena, and new hopes mingled with gratitude caused 
him to regard his situation seriously. He confessed to his 
sister that the filthy fellows, his comrades, were all but too 
much for him, and asked her to kiss him, that he might feel 
he was not one of them. But he would not send a message 
in reply to Lena. “ That is also well ! ” Lena said. Her 
brother Karl was a favourite with General Pierson. She 
proposed that Adela and herself should go to Count Karl, 
and urge him to use his influence with the General. This, 
however, Adela was disinclined to do ; she could not appa- 
rently say why. When Lena went to him, she was astonished 
to hear that he knew every stage of her advance up to the 
point of pardoning her erratic lover ; and even knew as much 
as that Wilfrid’s dejected countenance on the night when 
Vittoria’s marriage was published in the saloon of the 
duchess on Lake Como, had given her fresh offence. He 
told her that many powerful advocates were doing their 
best for the down-fallen officer, who, if he were shot, or 
killed, would still be gazetted an officer. “ A nice comfort ! ” 
said Lena, and there was a rallying exchange of banter be- 
tween them, out of which she drew the curious discovery 
that Karl had one of his strong admirations for the English 
lady. “ Surely ! ” she said to herself ; “ I thought they were 
all so cold.” And cold enough the English lady seemed 
when Lena led to the theme. “Do I admire your brother, 
Countess Lena ? Oh ! yes ; — in his uniform exceedingly.” 

Milan was now full. Wilfrid had heard from Adela 
that Count Ammiani and his bride were in the city and 


440 


VITTOHIA 


were strictly watched. Why did not conspirators like these 
two take advantage of the amnesty ? Why were they not 
in Rome? Their Chief was in Rome; their friends were 
in Rome. Why were they here ? A report, coming from 
Countess d’Isorella, said that they had quarrelled with their 
friends, and were living for love alone. As she visited the 
Lenkensteins — high Austrians — some believed her; and 
as Count Ammiani and his bride had visited the Duchess of 
Graatli, it was thought possible. Adela had refused to see 
Vittoria; she did not even know the house where Count 
Ammiani dwelt ; so Wilfrid was reduced to find it for him- 
self. Every hour when off duty the miserable sentimen- 
talist wandered in that direction, nursing the pangs of a 
delicious tragedy of emotions ; he was like a drunkard go- 
ing to his draught. As soon as he had reached the head 
of the Corso, he wheeled and marched away from it with a 
lofty head, internally grinning at his abject folly, and mar- 
velling at the stiff figure of an Austrian common soldier 
which flashed by the windows as he passed. He who can 
unite prudence and madness, sagacity and stupidity, is the 
true buffoon; nor, vindictive as were his sensations, was 
Wilfrid unaware of the contrast of Vittoria’s soul to his 
own, that was now made up of antics. He could not endure 
the tones of cathedral music ; but he had at times to kneel 
and listen to it, and be overcome. 

On a night in the month of February, a servant out of 
livery addressed him at the barrack-gates, requesting him 
to go at once to a certain hotel, where his sister was staying. 
He went, and found there, not his sister, but Countess 
Medole. She smiled at his confusion. Both she and the 
prince, she said, had spared no effort to get him reinstated 
in his rank ; but his uncle continually opposed the en- 
deavours of all his friends to serve him. This interview 
was dictated by the prince’s wish, so that he might know 
them to be a not ungrateful couple. Wilfrid’s embarrass- 
ment in standing before a lady in private soldier’s uniform, 
enabled him with very peculiar dignity to declare that his 
present degradation, from the General’s point of view, was 
a just punishment, and he did not crave to have it abated. 
She remarked that it must end soon. He made a dim allu- 
sion to the littleness of humanity. She laughed. “ It’s the 


THROUGH THE WINTER 


441 


language of an unfortunate lover, : ” she said, and straight- 
way, in some undistinguished sentence, brought the name of 
Countess Alessandra Ammiani tingling to his ears. She 
feared that she could not be of service to him there ; “ at 
least, not just yet,” the lady astonished him by remarking. 
“ I might help you to see her. If you take my advice you 
will wait patiently. You know us well enough to under- 
stand what patience will do. She is supposed to have mar- 
ried for love. Whether she did or not, you must allow a 
young married woman two years’ grace.” 

The effect of speech like this, and more in a similar strain 
of frank corruptness, was to cleanse Wilfrid’s mind, and 
nerve his heart, and he denied that he had any desire to 
meet the Countess Ammiani, unless he could perform a ser- 
vice that would be agreeable to her. 

The lady shrugged. “Well, that is one way. She has 
enemies, of course.” 

Wilfrid begged for their names. 

“ Who are they not ? ” she replied. “ Chiefly women, it 
is true.” 

He begged most earnestly for their names ; he would 
have pleaded eloquently, but dreaded that the intonation of 
one in his low garb might be taken for a whine ; yet he 
ventured to say that if the countess did imagine herself 
indebted to him in a small degree, the mention of two or 
three of the names of Countess Alessandra Ammiani’s ene- 
mies would satisfy him. 

“Countess Lena von Lenkenstein, Countess Violetta 
d’Isorella, signorina Irma di Karski.” 

She spoke the names out like a sum that she was paying 
down in gold pieces, and immediately rang the bell for her 
servant and carriage, as if she had now acquitted her debt. 
Wilfrid bowed himself forth. A resolution of the best kind, 
quite unconnected with his interests or his love, urged him 
on straight to the house of the Lenkensteins, where he sent 
up his name to Countess Lena. After a delay of many 
minutes, Count Lenkenstein accompanied by General Pierson 
came down, both evidently affecting not to see him. The 
General barely acknowledged his salute. 

“ Hey ! Kinsky ! ” the count turned in the doorway to 
address him by the title of his regiment ; “ here ; show me 


442 


VITTORIA 


the house inhabited by the Countess d’Isorella during the 
revolt.” 

Wilfrid followed them to the end of the street, pointing 
his finger to the house, and saluted. 

“An Englishman did me the favour — from pure eccen- 
tricity, of course — to save my life on that exact spot, Gen- 
eral,” said the count. “ Your countrymen usually take the 
other side ; therefore I mention it.” 

As Wilfrid was directing his steps to barracks (the little 
stir to his pride superinduced by these remarks having de- 
moralized him), Count Lenkenstein shouted : “ Are you off 
duty?” Wilfrid had nearly replied that he was, but just 
mastered himself in time. “No, indeed!” said the count, 
“when you have sent up your name to a lady.” This time 
General Pierson put two fingers formally to his cap, and 
smiled grimly at the private’s rigid figure of attention. If 
Wilfrid’s form of pride had consented to let him take delight 
in the fact, he would have seen at once that prosperity was 
ready to shine on him. He nursed the vexations much too 
tenderly to give prosperity a welcome ; and even when alone 
with Lena, and convinced of her attachment, and glad of it, 
he persisted in driving at the subject which had brought him 
to her house; so that the veil of opening commonplaces, 
pleasant to a couple in their position, was plucked aside. 
His business was to ask her why she was the enemy of 
Countess Alessandra Ammiani, and to entreat her that she 
should not seek to harm that lady. He put it in a set 
speech. Lena felt that it ought to have come last, not 
in advance of their reconciliation. “I will answer you,” 
she said. “ I am not the Countess Alessandra Ammiani’s 
enemy.” 

He asked her : “ Could you be her friend ? ” 

“ Does a woman who has a husband want a friend ? ” 

“ I could reply, countess, in the case of a man who has a 
bride.” 

By dint of a sweet suggestion here and there, love-making 
crossed the topic. It appeared that General Pierson had 
finally been attacked, on the question of his resistance to 
every endeavour to restore Wilfrid to his rank, by Count 
Lenkenstein, and had barely spoken the words — that if Wil- 
frid came to Countess Lena of his own free-will, unprompted, 


THROUGH THE WINTER 


443 


to beg her forgiveness, he would help to reinstate him, when 
Wilfrid’s name was brought up by the chasseur. All had 
laughed, “ Even I,” Lena confessed. And then the couple 
had a pleasant pettish wrangle ; — he was requested to avow 
that he had come solely, or principally, to beg forgiveness 
of her, who had such heaps to forgive. No; on his honour, 
he had come for the purpose previously stated, and on the 
spur of his hearing that she was Countess Alessandra 
Ammiani’s deadly enemy. “ Could you believe that I was ? ” 
said Lena ; “ why should I be ? ” and he coloured like a lad, 
which sign of an ingenuousness supposed to belong to her 
sex, made Lena bold to take the upper hand. She frankly 
accused herself of jealousy, though she did not say of whom. 
She almost admitted that when the time for reflection came, 
she should rejoice at his having sought her to plead for his 
friend rather than for her forgiveness. In the end, but with 
a drooping pause of her bright swift look at Wilfrid, she 
promised to assist him in defeating any machinations against 
Yittoria’s happiness, and to keep him informed of Countess 
d’Isorella’s movements. Wilfrid noticed the withdrawing 
fire of the look. “ By heaven ! she doubts me still,” he 
ejaculated inwardly. 

These half-comic little people have their place in the his- 
tory of higher natures and darker destinies. Wilfrid met 
Pericles, from whom he heard that Yittoria, with her hus- 
band’s consent, had pledged herself' to sing publicly. “ It is 
for ze Lombard widows,” Pericles apologized on her behalf ; 
“ but, do you see, I onnly want a beginning. She thaerst 
for ze stage; and it is, after marriage, a good sign. Oh! 
you shall hear, my friend ; marriage have done her no hurt 
— ze contrary ! You shall hear Hymen — Cupids — not a cold 
machine ; it is an organ alaif ! She has privily sung to her 
Pericles, and ser, and if I wake not very late on Judgement- 
Day, I shall zen hear — but why should I talk poetry to you, 
to make you laugh ? I have a divin’ passion for zat woman. 
Do I not give her to a husband, and say, Be happy ! onnly 
sing! Be kissed! be hugged! onnly give Pericles your 
voice. By Saint Alexandre ! it is to say to ze heavens, 
Move on your way, so long as you drop rain on us — you 
smile — you look kind.” 

Pericles accompanied him into a caffe, the picture of an 


444 


VITTORIA 


enamoured happy man. He waived aside contemptuously 
all mention of Vittoria’s having enemies. She had them 
when, as a virgin, she had no sense. As a woman, she had 
none, for she now had sense. Had she not brought her hus- 
band to be sensible, so that they moved together in Milanese 
society, instead of stupidly fighting at Rome ? so that what 
he could not take to himself — the marvellous voice — he let 
bless the multitude! “ She is the Beethoven of singers,” 
Pericles concluded. Wilfrid thought so on the night when 
she sang to succour the Lombard widows. It was at a con- 
cert, richly thronged ; ostentatiously thronged with Austrian 
uniforms. He fancied that he could not bear to look on her. 
He left the house thinking that to hear her and see her and 
feel that she was one upon the earth, made life less of a 
burden. 

This evening was rendered remarkable by a man’s calling 
out, “You are a traitress!” while Vittoria stood before 
the seats. She became pale, and her eyelids closed. Ho 
thinness was subsequently heard in her voice. The man 
was caught as he strove to burst through the crowd at 
the entrance-door, and proved to be a petty bookseller of 
Milan, by name Sarpo, known as an orderly citizen. When 
taken he was inflamed with liquor. Next day the man was 
handed from the civil to the military authorities, he having 
confessed to the existence of a plot in the city. Pericles 
came fuming to Wilfrid’s quarters. Wilfrid gathered from 
him that Sarpo’s general confession had been retracted : it 
was too foolish to snare the credulity of Austrian officials. 
Sarpo stated that he had fabricated the story of a plot, in 
order to escape the persecutions of a terrible man, and find 
safety in prison lodgings under Government. The short con- 
finement for a civic offence was not his idea of safety ; he 
desired to be sheltered by Austrian soldiers and a fortress, 
and said that his torments Vere insupportable while Barto 
Bizzo was at large. This infamous Bepublican had latterly 
been living in his house, eating his bread, and threatening 
death to him unless he obeyed every command. Sarpo had 
undertaken his last mission for the purpose of supplying his 
lack of resolution to release himself from his horrible ser- 
vitude by any other means; not from personal animosity 
toward the Countess Alessandra Ammiani, known as la 


THROUGH THE WINTER 


445 


Yittoria. When seized, fear had urged him to escape. 
Such was his second story. The points seemed irreconcile- 
able to those who were not in the habit of taking human 
nature into their calculations of a possible course of conduct ; 
even Wilfrid, though he was aware that Barto Rizzo hated 
Yittoria inveterately, imagined Sarpo’s first lie to have 
necessarily fathered a second. But the second story was 
true : and the something like lover’s wrath with which the 
outrage to Yittoria fired Pericles, prompted him to act on it 
as truth. He told Wilfrid that he should summon Barto 
Rizzo to his presence. As the Government was unable to 
exhibit so much power, Wilfrid looked sarcastic ; where- 
upon Pericles threw up his chin crying : “ Oh ! you shall 
know my resources. Now, my friend, one bit of paper, and 
a messenger, and zen home to my house, to Tokay and 
cigarettes, and wait to see.” He remarked after pencilling 
a few lines, “ Countess d’Isorella is her enemy ? hein ! ” 

“ Why, you wouldn’t listen to me when I told you,” said 
Wilfrid. 

“ No,” Pericles replied while writing and humming over his 
pencil ; “my ear is a pelican-pouch, my friend ; it — and Irma is 
her enemy also ? — it takes and keeps, but does not swallow 
till it wants. I shall hear you, and I shall hear my Sandra 
Yittoria, and I shall not know you have spoken, when by-and- 
by ‘ tinkle, tinkle,’ a bell of my brain, and your word walks 
in, — ‘ quite well ? ’ — ‘ very well ! ’ — ‘sit down ’ — ‘if it is 
ze same to you, I prefer to stand. ’ — ‘ good ; zen I examine 
you.’ My motto : — ‘ Time opens ze gates : ’ my system : — 
it is your doctor of regiment’s system when your twelve, 
fifteen, forty recruits strip to him : — ‘ Ah ! you, my man, 
have varicose vein : no soldier in our regiment, you ! ’ So on. 
Perhaps I am not intelligible ; but, hear zis. I speak not 
often of my money ; but I say — it is in your ear — a man of 
millions, he is a king ! ” The Greek jumped up and folded 
a couple of notes. “ I will not have her disturbed. Let her 
sing now and awhile to Pericles and his public : and to ze 
Londoners, wiz your permission, Count Ammiani, one saison. 
I ask no more, and I am satisfied, and I endow your oldest 
child, signor Conte — it is said! For its mama was a good 
girl, a brave girl; she troubled Pericles, because he is an 
intellect; but he forgives when he sees sincerity — rare 


446 


VITTOKIA 


zing ! Sincerity and genius : it may be zey are as man and wife 
in a bosom. He forgives ; it is not onnly voice he craves, 
but a soul, and Sandra, your countess, she has a soul — I am 
not a Turk. I say, it is a woman in whom a girl I did see 
a soul ! A woman when she is married, she is part of ze man ; 
but a soul, it is for ever alone, apart, confounded wiz no- 
body ! For it I followed Sandra, your countess. It was a 
sublime devotion of a dog. Her voice tsrilled, her soul pos- 
sessed me. Your countess is my Sandra still. I shall be 
pleased if child-bearing trouble her not more zan a very 
little ; but, enfin ! she is married, and yon and I, my friend 
Wilfrid, we must accept ze decree, and say, no harm to her 
out of ze way of nature, by Saint Nicolas ! or any what saint 
you choose for your invocation. Come along. And speed 
my letters by one of your militaires at once off. Are Peri- 
cles’ millions gold of bad mint ? If so, he is an incapable. 
He presumes it is not so. Come along ; we will drink to 
her in essence of Tokay. You shall witness two scenes. 
Away ! ” 

Wilfrid was barely to be roused from his fit of brooding 
into which Pericles had thrown him. He sent the letters, 
and begged to be left to sleep. The image of Yittoria seen 
through this man’s mind was new, and brought a new round 
of torments. “ The devil take you,” he cried when Pericles 
plucked at his arm, “I’ve sent the letters; isn’t that 
enough ? ” He was bitterly jealous of the Greek’s philo- 
sophic review of the conditions of Yittoria’s marriage ; for 
when he had come away from the concert, not a thought of 
her being a wife had clouded his resignation to the fact. 
He went with Pericles, nevertheless, and was compelled to 
acknowledge the kindling powers of the essence of Tokay. 
“Where do you get this stuff?” he asked several times. 
Pericles chattered of England, and Hagar’s ‘Addio,’ and 
‘ Camilla.’ What cabinet operas would he not give ! What 
entertainments ! Could an emperor offer such festivities to 
his subjects ? Was a Field Eeview equal to Yittoria’s 
voice? He stung Wilfrid’s ears by insisting on the mel- 
lowed depth, the soft human warmth, which marriage had 
lent to the voice. At a late hour his valet announced Coun- 
tess d’Isorella. “ Did I not say so ? ” cried Pericles, and 
corrected himself : “ No, I did not say so ; it was a surprise 


THROUGH THE WINTER 


447 


to you, my friend. You shall see ; you shall hear. Now 
you shall see what a friend Pericles can be when a person 
satisfy him.” He pushed Wilfrid into his dressing-room, 
and immediately received the countess with an outburst of 
brutal invectives — pulling her up and down the ranked 
regiment of her misdeeds, as it were. She tried dignity, 
tried anger, she affected amazement, she petitioned for the 
heads of his accusations, and, as nothing stopped him, she 
turned to go. Pericles laughed when she had left the room. 
Irma di Karski was announced the next minute, and Coun- 
tess d’Isorella re-appeared beside her. Irma had a similar 
greeting. “ I am lost,” she exclaimed. “ Yes, you are lost,” 
said Pericles ; “ a word from me, and the back of the public 
is humped at you — ha ! contessa, you touched Mdlle. Irma’s 
hand ? She is to be on her guard, and never to think she 
is lost till down she goes ? You are a more experienced 
woman ! I tell you I will have no nonsense. I am Countess 
Alessandra Ammiani’s friend. You two, you women, are 
her enemies. I will ruin you both. You would prevent 
her singing in public places — you, Countess d’Isorella, 
because you do not forgive her marriage to Count Ammiani ; 
you, Irma, to spite her for her voice. You would hiss her 
out of hearing, you two miserable creatures. Not another 
soldo for you! Not one! and to-morrow, countess, I will 
see my lawyer. Irma, begone, and shriek to your wardrobe ! 
Countess d’Isorella, I have the extreme honour.” 

Wilfrid marvelled to hear this titled and lovely woman 
speaking almost in tones of humility in reply to such out- 
rageous insolence. She craved a private interview. Irma 
was temporarily expelled, and then Violetta stooped to ask 
what the Greek’s reason for his behaviour could be. She 
admitted that it was in his power to ruin her, as far as 
money went. “Perhaps a little farther,” said Pericles; 
“ say two steps. If one is on a precipice, two steps count 
for something.” But, what had she done? Pericles re- 
fused to declare it. This set her guessing with a charming 
naivete. Pericles called Irma back to assist her in the task, 
and quitted them that they might consult together and hit 
upon the right thing. His object was to send his valet 
for Luigi Saracco. He had seen that no truth could be 
extracted from these women, save forcibly. Unaware that 


448 


VITTOKIA 


he had gone out, Wilfrid listened long enough to hear Irma 
say, between sobs : “ Oh ! I shall throw myself upon his 
mercy. Oh, Countess d’Isorella, why did you lead me to 
think of vengeance ! I am lost ! He knows everything. 
Oh, what is it to me whether she lives with her husband ! 
Let them go on plotting. I am not the Government. I am 
sure I don’t much dislike her. Yes, I hate her, but why 
should I hurt myself? She will wear those jewels on her 
forehead; she will wear that necklace with the big ame- 
thysts, and pretend she’s humble because she doesn’t carry 
earrings, when her ears have never been pierced! I am 
lost ! Yes, you may say, look up ! I am only a poor singer, 
and he can ruin me. Oh ! Countess d’Isorella, oh ! what a 
fearful punishment. If Countess Anna should betray Count 
Ammiani to-night, nothing, nothing, will save me. I will 
confess. Let us both be beforehand with her — or you, it 
does not matter for a noble lady.” 

“ Hush ! ” said Violetta. “ What dreadful fool is this I 
sit with? You may have done what you think of doing 
already.” 

She walked to the staircase door, and to that of the suite. 
An honourable sentiment, conjoined to the knowledge that 
he had heard sufficient, induced Wilfrid to pass on into the 
sleeping apartment a moment or so before Violetta took this 
precaution. The potent liquor of Pericles had deprived him 
of consecutive ideas ; he sat nursing a thunder in his head, 
imagining it to be profound thought, till Pericles flung the 
door open. Violetta and Irma had departed. “ Behold ! I 
have it ; ze address of your rogue Barto Bizzo,” said Pericles, 
in the manner of one whose triumph is absolutely due to 
his own shrewdness. “ Are two women a match for me ? 
Now, my friend, you shall see. Barto Bizzo is too clever 
for zis government, which cannot catch him. I catch him, 
and I teach him he may touch politics — -it is not for him 
to touch Art. What ! to hound men to interrupt her while 
she sings in public places ? What next ! But I knew my 
Countess d’Isorella could help me, and so I sent for her to 
confront Irma, and dare to say she knew not Barto’s dwell- 
ing — and why ? I will tell you a secret. A long-flattered 
woman, my friend, she has had, you will think, enough of 
it ; no ! she is like avarice. If it is worship of swflne, she 


THROUGH THE WINTER 


449 


cannot refuse it. Barto Rizzo worships her ; so it is a deduc- 
tion — she knows his abode — I act upon that, and I arrive 
at my end. I now send him to ze devil.” 

Barto Rizzo, after having evaded the polizia of the city 
during a three months’ steady chase, was effectually capt- 
ured on the doorstep of Yittoria’s house in the Corso Fran- 
cesco, by gendarmes whom Pericles had set on his track. 
A day later Yittoria was stabbed at about the same hour, 
on the same spot. A woman dealt the blow. Vittoria was 
returning from an afternoon drive with Laura Piaveni and 
the children. She saw a woman seated on the steps as 
beggarwomen sit, face in lap. Anxious to shield her from 
the lacquey, she sent the two little ones up to her with small 
bits of money. But, as the woman would not lift her head, 
she and Laura prepared to pass her, Laura coming last. 
The blow, like all such unexpected incidents, had the effect 
of lightning on those present; the woman might have 
escaped, but after she had struck she sat down impassive 
as a cat by the hearth, with a round-eyed stare. 

The news that Yittoria had been assassinated traversed 
the city. Carlo was in Turin, Merthyr in Rome. Pericles 
was one of the first who reached the house ; he was coming 
out when Wilfrid and the Duchess of Graatli drove up; and 
he accused the Countess d’Isorella flatly of having instigated 
the murder. He was frantic. They supposed that she must 
have succumbed to the wound. The duchess sent for Laura. 
There was a press of carriages and soft-humming people in 
the street; many women and men sobbing. Wilfrid had to 
wait an hour for the duchess, who brought comfort when 
she came. Her first words were reassuring. “Ah!” she 
said, “ did I not do well to make you drive here with me 
instead of with Lena? Those eyes of yours would be unpar- 
donable to her. Yes, indeed; though a corpse were lying 
in this house: but Countess Alessandra is safe. I have 
seen her. I have held her hand.” 

Wilfrid kissed the duchess’s hand passionately. 

What she had said of Lena was true : Lena could only be 
generous upon the after-thought; and when the duchess 
drove Wilfrid back to her, he had to submit to hear scorn 
and indignation against all Italians, who were denounced 
as cut-throats, and worse and worse and worse, males and 


450 


YITTORIA 


females alike. This was grounded on her sympathy for 
Yittoria. But Wilfrid now felt toward the Italians through 
his remembrance of that devoted soul’s love of them, and 
with one direct look he bade his betrothed good-bye, and 
they parted. 

It was in the early days of March that Merthyr, then 
among the Republicans of Rome, heard from Laura Piaveni. 
Two letters reached him, one telling of the attempted assas- 
sination, and a second explaining circumstances connected 
with it. The first summoned him to Milan ; the other left 
it to his option to make the journey. He started, carrying 
kind messages from the Chief to Yittoria, and from Luciano 
Romara* the offer of a renewal of old friendship to Count 
Ammiani. His political object was to persuade the Lom- 
bard youth to turn their whole strength upon Rome. The 
desire of his heart was again to see her, who had been so 
nearly lost to all eyes for ever. 

Laura’s first letter stated brief facts. “ She was stabbed 
this afternoon, at half-past two, on the steps of her house, 
by a woman called the wife of Barto Rizzo. She caught 
her hands up under her throat when she saw the dagger. 
Her right arm was penetrated just above the wrist, and 
half-an-inch in the left breast, close to the centre bone. 
She behaved firmly. The assassin only struck once. Ho 
visible danger; but you should come, if you have no serious 
work.” 

“Happily,” ran the subsequent letter, of two days’ later 
date, “ the assassin was a woman, and one effort exhausts a 
woman; she struck only once, and became idiotic. Sandra 
has no fever. She had her wits ready — where were mine? 
— when she received the wound. While I had her in my 
arms, she gave orders that the woman should be driven out 
of the city in her carriage. The Greek, her mad musical 
adorer, accuses Countess d’Isorella. Carlo has seen this 
person — returns convinced of her innocence. That is not 
an accepted proof; but we have one. It seems that Rizzo 
(Sandra was secret about it and about one or two other 
things) sent to her commanding her to appoint an hour — 
detestable style! I can see it now; I fear these conspiracies 
no longer: — she did appoint an hour; and was awaiting 
him when the gendarmes sprang on the man at her door. 


THROUGH THE WINTER 


451 


He had evaded them several weeks, so we are to fancy that 
his wife charged Countess Alessandra with the betrayal. 
This appears a reasonable and simple way of accounting 
for the deed. So I only partly give credit to it. But it 
may be true. 

“ The wound has not produced a shock to her system — 
very, very fortunately. On the whole, a better thing could 
not have happened. Should I be more explicit? Yes, to 
you; for you are not of those who see too much in what is 
barely said. The wound, then, my dear good friend, has 
healed another wound, of which I knew nothing. Bergamasc 
and Brescian friends of her husband’s, have imagined that 
she interrupted or diverted his studies. He also discovered 
that she had an opinion of her own, and sometimes he con- 
sulted it ; but alas ! they are lovers, and he knew not when 
love listened, or she when love spoke ; and there was grave 
business to be done meanwhile. Can you kindly allow that 
the case was open to a little confusion? I know that you 
will. He had to hear many violent reproaches from his 
fellow-students. These have ceased. I send this letter on 
the chance of the first being lost on the road; and it will 
supplement the first pleasantly to you in any event. She 
lies here in the room where I write, propped on high pil- 
lows, the right arm bound up, and says: ‘Tell Merthyr I 
prayed to be in Borne with my husband, and him, and the 
Chief. Tell him I love my friend. Tell him I think he 

deserves to be in Borne. Tell him ’ Enter Countess 

Ammiani to reprove her for endangering the hopes of the 
house by fatiguing herself. Sandra sends a blush at me, 
and I smile, and the countess kisses her. I send you a 
literal transcript of one short scene, so that you may feel 
at home with us. 

“ There is a place called Venice, and there is a place called 
Borne, and both places are pretty places and famous places ; 
and there is a thing called the fashion ; and these pretty 
places and famous places set the fashion : and there is a 
place called Milan, and a place called Bergamo, and a place 
called Brescia, and they all want to follow the fashion, for 
they are giddy-pated baggages. What is the fashion, mama? 
The fashion, my dear, is &c. &c. &c. : — Extract of lecture 
to my little daughter, Amalia, who says she forgets you; 


452 


VITTORIA 


but Giacomo sends his manly love. Oh, good God! should 
I have blood in my lips when I kissed him, if I knew that 
he was old enough to go out with a sword in his hand a 
week hence? I seem every day to be growing more and 
more all mother. This month in front of us is full of 
thunder. Addio ! ” 

When Merthyr stood in sight of Milan an army was issu- 
ing from the gates. 


CHAPTER XLI 

THE INTERVIEW 

Merthyr saw Laura first. He thought that Vittoria 
must be lying on her couch : but Laura simply figured her 
arm in a sling, and signified, more than said, that Vittoria 
was well and taking the air. She then begged hungrily for 
news of Rome, and again of Rome, and sat with her hands 
clasped in her lap to listen. She mentioned Venice in a 
short breath of praise, as if her spirit could not repose there. 
Rome, its hospitals, its municipal arrangements, the names 
of the triumvirs, the prospects of the city, the edicts, the 
aspects of the streets, the popularity of the Government, 
the number of volunteers ranked under the magical Republic 
— of these things Merthyr talked, at her continual instiga- 
tion, till, stopping abruptly, he asked her if she wished to 
divert him from any painful subject. “ No, no ! ” she cried, 
“ it’s only that I want to feel an anchor. We are all adrift. 
Sandra is in perfect health. Our bodies, dear Merthyr, are 
enjoying the perfection of comfort. Nothing is done here 
except to keep us from boiling over.” 

“Why does not Count Ammiani come to Rome?” said 
Merthyr. 

“Why are we not all in Rome? Yes, why! why! We 
should make a carnival of our own if we were.” 

“She would have escaped that horrible knife,” Merthyr 
sighed. 

“ Yes, she would have escaped that horrible knife. But 
see the difference between Milan and Rome, my friend ! It 


THE INTERVIEW 


453 


was a blessed knife here. It has given her husband back 
to her; it has destroyed the intrigues against her. It seems 
to have been sent — I was kneeling in the cathedral this 
morning, and had the very image crossing my eyes — from 
the saints of heaven to cut the black knot. Perhaps it may 
be the means of sending us to Rome.” 

Laura paused, and, looking at him, said, “ It is so utterly 
impossible for us women to comprehend love without folly 
in a man ; the trait by which we recognize it ! Merthyr, 
you dear Englishman, you shall know everything. Do we 
not think a tisane a weak washy drink, when we are strong? 
But we learn, when we lie with our chins up, and our ten 
toes like stopped organ-pipes — as Sandra says — we learn 
then that it means fresh health and activity, and is better 
than rivers of your fiery wines. You love her, do you not? ” 

The question came with great simplicity. 

“If I can give a proof of it, I am ready to answer,” said 
Merthyr, in some surprise. 

“Your whole life is the proof of it. The women of your 
country are intolerable to me, Merthyr : but I do see the 
worth of the men. Sandra has taught me. She can think 
of you, talk of you, kiss the vision of you, and still be a 
faithful woman in our bondage of flesh ; and to us you know 
what a bondage it is. How can that be? I should have 
asked, if I had not seen it. Dearest, she loves her husband, 
and she loves you. She has two husbands, and she turns to 
the husband of her spirit when that, or any, dagger strikes 
her bosom. Carlo has an unripe mind. They have been 
married but a little more than four months; and he reveres 
her and loves her.” .... Laura’s voice dragged. “Mul- 
tiply the months by thousands, we shall not make those two 
lives one. It is the curse of man’s education in Italy? He 
can see that she has wits and courage. He will not consent 
to make use of them. You know her : she is not one to talk 
of these things. She, who has both heart and judgement — 
she is merely a little boat tied to a big ship. Such is their 
marriage. She cannot influence him. She is not allowed 
to advise him. And she is the one who should lead the 
way. And if she did, we should now be within sight of 
the City.” 

Laura took his hand. She found it moist, though his 


454 


VITTORIA 


face was calm and his chest heaved regularly. An impish 
form of the pity women feel for us at times moved her to 
say, “ Your skin is as bronzed as it was last year. Sandra 
spoke of it. She compared it to a young vine-leaf. I won- 
der whether girls have really an admonition of what is good 
for them while they are going their ways like destined 
machines? ” 

“Almost all men are of flesh and blood/’ said Merthyr 
softly. 

“I spoke of girls.” 

“I speak of men.” 

“ Blunt-witted that I am ! Of course you did. But do 
not imagine that she is not happy with her husband. They 
are united firmly.” 

“The better for her, and him, and me,” said Merthyr. 

Laura twisted an end of her scarf with fretful fingers. 
“Carlo Albert has crossed the Ticino?” 

“Is about to do so,” Merthyr rejoined. 

“Will Borne hold on if he is defeated?” 

“Borne has nothing to fear on that side.” 

“ But you do not speak hopefully of Borne.” 

“I suppose I am thinking of other matters.” 

“ You confess it! ” 

The random conversation wearied him. His foot tapped 
the floor. 

“ Why do you say that? ” he asked. 

“Verily, for no other reason than that I have a wicked 
curiosity, and that you come from Borne,” said Laura, now 
perfectly frank, and believing that she had explained her 
enigmatical talk, if she had not furnished an excuse for it. 
Merthyr came from the City which was now encircled by 
an irradiating halo in her imagination, and a fit of spon- 
taneous inexplicable feminine tenderness being upon her at 
the moment of their meeting, she found herself on a sudden 
prompted to touch and probe and brood voluptuously over 
an unfortunate lover’s feelings, supposing that they existed. 
For the glory of Borne was on him, and she was at the same 
time angry with Carlo Ammiani. It was the form of pas- 
sion her dedicated widowhood could still be subject to in its 
youth; the sole one. By this chance Merthyr learnt what 
nothing else would have told him. 


THE INTERVIEW 


455 


Her tale of the attempted assassination was related with 
palpable indifference. She stated the facts. “The woman 
seemed to gasp while she had her hand up; she struck with 
no force; and she has since been inanimate, I hear. The 
doctor says that a spasm of the heart seized her when she 
was about to strike. It has been shaken — I am not sure 
that he does not say displaced, or unseated — by some one 
of her black tempers. She shot Rinaldo Guidascarpi dead. 
Perhaps it was that. I am informed that she worshipped 
the poor boy, and has been like a trapped she-wolf since 
she did it. In some way she associated our darling with 
Rinaldo’s death, like the brute she is. The ostensible 
ground for her futile bit of devilishness was that she fan- 
cied Sandra to have betrayed Barto Rizzo, her husband, 
into the hands of the polizia. He wrote to the Countess 
Alessandra — such a letter ! — a curiosity ! — he must see 
her and cross-examine her to satisfy himself that she was 
a true patriot, &c. You know the style : we neither of us 
like it. Sandra was waiting to receive him when they 
pounced on him by the door. Next day the woman struck 
at her. Decidedly a handsome woman. She is the exact 
contrast to the Countess Violetta in face, in everything. 
Heart-disease will certainly never affect that pretty spy! 
But, mark,” pursued Laura, warming, “when Carlo arrived, 
tears, penitence, heaps of self-accusations: he had been 
unkind to her even on Lake Orta, where they passed their 
golden month; he had neglected her at Turin; he had 
spoken angry words in Milan; in fact, he had misused his 
treasure, and begged pardon; — ‘If } t ou please, my poor 
bleeding angel, I am sorry. But do not, I entreat, distract 
me with petitions of any sort, though I will perform any- 
thing earthly to satisfy you. Be a good little boat in the 
wake of the big ship. I will look over at you, and chirrup 
now and then to you, my dearest, when I am not engaged 
in piloting extraordinary. ’ — Very well; I do not mean to 
sneer at the unhappy boy, Merthyr; I love him; he was 
my husband’s brother in arms; the sweetest lad ever seen. 
He is in the season of faults. He must command; he must 
be a chief; he fancies he can intrigue — poor thing! It 
will pass. And so will the hour to be forward to Rome. 
But I call your attention to this: when he heard of the 


456 


VITTORIA 


dagger — I have it from Colonel Corte, who was with him 
at the time in Turin — he cried out Violetta d’Isorella’s 
name. Why? After he had buried his head an hour on 
Sandra’s pillow, he went straight to Countess d’Isorella, 
and was absent till night. The woman is hideous to me. 
No; don’t conceive that I think her Sandra’s rival. She 
is too jealous. She has him in some web. If she has not 
ruined him, she will. She was under my eyes the night 
she heard of his marriage: I saw how she will look at 
seventy ! Here is Carlo at the head of a plot she has pre- 
pared for him; and he has Angelo Guidascarpi, and Ugo 
Corte, Marco Sana, Giulio Bandinelli, and about fifty others. 
They have all been kept away from Rome by that detestable 

you object to hear bad names cast on women, Merthyr. 

Hear Agostino ! The poor old man comes daily to this house 
to persuade Carlo to lead his band to Rome. It is so clearly 
Rome — Rome, where all his comrades are ; where the chief 
stand must be made by the side of Italy’s Chief. Worst 
sign of all, it has been hinted semi-officially to Carlo that 
he may upon application be permitted to re-issue his journal. 
Does not that show that the Government wishes to blindfold 
him, and keep him here, and knows his plans?” 

Laura started up as the door opened, and Vittoria appeared 
leaning upon Carlo’s arm. Countess Ammiani, Countess 
d’Isorella, and Pericles were behind them. Laura’s chil- 
dren followed. 

When Merthyr rose, Vittoria was smiling in Carlo’s face 
at something that had been spoken. She was pale, and her 
arm was in a sling, but there was no appearance of her being 
unnerved. Merthyr waited for her recognition of him. 
She turned her eyes from Carlo slowly. The soft dull 
smile in them died out as it were with a throb, and then 
her head drooped on one shoulder, and she sank to the 
floor. 


THE SHADOW OF CONSPIRACY 


457 


CHAPTEB XLII 

THE SHADOW OF CONSPIRACY 

Merthyr left the house at Laura’s whispered suggestion. 
He was agitated beyond control, for Yittoria had fallen with 
her eyes fixed on him ; and at times the picture of his be- 
loved, her husband, and Countess Ammiani, and the children 
bending over her still body, swam before him like a dark 
altar-piece floating in incense, so lost was he to the reality 
of that scene. He did not hear Beppo, his old servant, at 
his heels. After a while he walked calmly, and Beppo came 
up beside him. Merthyr shook his hand. 

“ Ah, signor Mertyrio ! ah, padrone ! ” said Beppo. 

Merthyr directed his observation to a regiment of Aus- 
trians marching down the Corso Venezia to the Ticinese gate. 

“Yes, they are ready enough for us,” Beppo remarked. 
“ Perhaps Carlo Alberto will beat them this time. If he 
does, viva to him! If they beat him, down goes another 

Venetian pyramid. The Countess Alessandra ” Beppo’s 

speech failed. 

“What of your mistress?” said Merthyr. 

“ When she dies, my dear master, there’s no one for me 
but the Madonna to serve.” 

“Why should she die, silly fellow?” 

“Because she never cries>” 

Merthyr was on the point of saying, “ Why should she 
cry?” His heart was too full, and he shrank from inquisi- 
tive shadows of the thing known to him. 

“Sit down at this caffe with me,” he said. “It’s fine 
weather for March. The troops will camp comfortably. 
Those Hungarians never require tents. Did you see much 
sacking of villages last year?” 

“ Padrone, the Imperial command is always to spare the 
villages.” 

“That’s humane.” 

“Padrone, yes; if policy is humanity.” 

“ It’s humanity not carried quite as far as we should wish 
it.” 


458 


VITTORIA 


Beppo shrugged and said : “ It won’t leave much upon the 
conscience if we kill them.” 

“ Do you expect a rising? ” said Merthyr. 

“If the Ticino overflows, it will flood Milan,” was the 
answer. 

“ And your occupation now is to watch the height of the 
water? ” 

“ My occupation, padrone? I am not on the watch-tower.” 
Beppo winked, adding : “ I have my occupation. ” He threw 
off the effort or pretence to be discreet. “ Master of my soul ! 
this is my occupation. I drink coffee, but I do not smoke, 
because I have to kiss a pretty girl, who means to object to 
the smell of the smoke. Via! I know her! At five she 
draws me into the house.” 

“Are you relating your amours to me, rascal?” Merthyr 
interposed. 

“ Padrone, at five precisely she draws me into the house. 
She is a German girl. Pardon me if I make no war on 
women. Her name is Aennchen, which one is able to say 
if one grimaces; — why not? It makes her laugh; and 
German girls are amiable when one can make them laugh. 
’Tis so that they begin to melt. Behold the difference of 
races ! I must kiss her to melt her, and then have a quar- 
rel. I could have it after the first, or the fiftieth with an 
Italian girl; but my task will be excessively difficult with 
a German girl, if I am compelled to allow myself to favour 
her with one happy solicitation for a kiss, to commence with. 
We shall see. It is, as my abstention from tobacco de- 
clares, an anticipated catastrophe.” 

“ Long-worded, long-winded, obscure, affirmatizing by neg- 
atives, confessing by implication ! — where’s the beginning 
and end of you, and what’s your meaning? ” said Merthyr, 
who talked to him as one may talk to an Italian servant. 

“ The contessa, my mistress, has enemies. Padrone, I 
devote myself to her service.” 

“By making love to a lady’s maid?” 

“ Padrone, a rat is not born to find his way up the grand 
staircase. She has enemies. One of them was the sublime 
Barto Rizzo — admirable — though I must hate him. He 
said to his wife: ‘If a thing happens to me, stab to the 
heart the Countess Alessandra Ammiani.’” 


THE SHADOW OF CONSPIRACY 


459 


“Inform me how yon know that?” said Merthyr. 

Beppo pointed to his head, and Merthyr smiled. To 
imagine, invent, and believe, were spontaneous with Beppo 
when his practical sagacity was not on the stretch. He 
glanced at the caffe clock. 

“Padrone, at eleven to-night shall I see you here? At 
eleven I shall come like a charged cannon. I have busi- 
ness. I have seen my mistress’s blood! I will tell you: 
this German girl lets me know that some one detests my 
mistress. Who? I am off to discover. But who is the 
damned creature? I must coo and kiss, while my toes are 
dancing on hot plates, to find her out. Who is she? If 
she were half Milan ...” 

His hands waved in outline the remainder of the speech, 
and he rose, but sat again. He had caught sight of the 
spy, Luigi Saracco, addressing the signor Antonio-Pericles 
in his carriage. Pericles drove on. The horses presently 
turned, and he saluted Merthyr. 

“She has but one friend in Milan: it is myself,” was his 
introductory remark. “My poor child! my dear Powys, 
she is the best — ‘I cannot sing to you to-day, dear Peri- 
cles ’ — she said that after she had opened her eyes ; after 
the first mist, you know. She is the best child upon earth. 
I could wish she were a devil, my Powys. Such a voice 
should be in an iron body. But she has immense health. 
The doctor, who is also mine, feels her pulse. He assures 
me it goes as Time himself, and Time, my friend, you know, 
has the intention of going a great way. She is good: she 
is too good. She makes a baby of Pericles, to whom what 
is woman? Have I not the sex in my pocket? Her hus- 
band, he is a fool, ser.” Pericles broke thundering into a 
sentence of English, fell in love with it, and resumed in 
the same tongue : “I — it is I zat am her guard, her safety. 
Her husband — oh! she must marry a young man, little 
donkey zat she is! We accept it as a destiny, my Powys. 
And he plays false to her. Good; I do not object. But, 
imagine in your own mind, my Powys — instead of passion, 
of rage, of tempest, she is frozen wiz a repose. Do you, 
hein? sink it will come out,” — Pericles eyed Merthyr with 
a subtle smile askew, — “I have sot so ; — it will come out 
when she is one day in a terrible scene . . . Mon Dieu! 


460 


VITTOHIA 


it was a terrible scene for me when I looked on ze clout 
zat washed ze blood of ze terrible assassination. So goes 
out a voice, possibly ! Divine, you say? We are a machine. 
Now, you behold, she has faints. It may happen at my 
concert where she sings to-morrow night. You saw me in 
my carriage speaking to a man. He is my spy — my dog 
wiz a nose. I have set him upon a woman. If zat woman 
has a plot for to-morrow night to spoil my concert, she shall 
not know where she shall wake to-morrow morning after. 
Ha! here is military music — twenty sossand doors jam on 
horrid hinge; and right, left, right, left, to it, confound! 
like dolls all wiz one face. Look at your soldiers, Powys. 
Put zem on a stage, and you see all background people — a 
bawling chorus. It shows to you how superior it is — a 
stage to life! Hark to such music! I cannot stand it; I 
am driven away; I am violent; I rage.” 

Pericles howled the name of his place of residence, with 
an offer of lodgings in it, and was carried off writhing his 
body as he passed a fine military marching band. 

The figure of old Agostino Balderini stood in front of 
Merthyr. They exchanged greetings. At the mention of 
Rome, Agostino frowned impatiently. He spoke of Yittoria 
in two or three short exclamations, and was about to speak of 
Carlo, but checked his tongue. “ Judge for yourself. Come, 
and see, and approve, if you can. Will you come? There’s 
a meeting; there’s to be a resolution. Question — Shall we 
second the King of Sardinia, Piedmont, and Savoy? If so, let 
us set this pumpkin, called Milan, on its legs. I shall be an 
attentive listener like you, my friend. I speak no more.” 

Merthyr went with him to the house of a carpenter, where 
in one of the uppermost chambers communicating with the 
roof, Ugo Corte, Marco Sana, Giulio Bandinelli, and others, 
sat waiting for the arrival of Carlo Ammiani; when he 
came Carlo had to bear with the looks of mastiffs for being 
late. He shook Merthyr’s hand hurriedly, and as soon as 
the door was fastened, began to speak. His first sentence 
brought a grunt of derision from Ugo Corte. It declared 
that there was no hope of a rising in Milan. Carlo swung 
round upon the Bergamasc. “Observe our leader,” Agos- 
tino whispered to Merthyr; “it would be kindness to give 
him a duel.” More than one tumult of outcries had to be 


THE SHADOW OF CONSPIRACY 


461 


stilled before Merthyr gathered any notion of the designs 
of the persons present. Bergamasc sneered at Brescian, 
and both united in contempt of the Milanese, who, having 
a burden on their minds, appealed at once to their indi- 
vidual willingness to use the sword in vindication of Milan 
against its traducers. By a great effort, Carlo got some 
self-mastery. He admitted, colouring horribly, that Bres- 
cia and Bergamo were ready, and Milan was not; therefore 
those noble cities (he read excerpts from letters showing 
their readiness) were to take the lead, and thither on the 
morrow-night he would go, let the tidings from the king’s 
army be what they might. 

Merthyr quitted the place rather impressed by his elo- 
quence, but unfavourably by his feverish look. Countess 
d’Isorella had been referred to as one who served the cause 
ably and faithfully. In alluding to her, Carlo bit his lip; 
he did not proceed until surrounding murmurs of satisfac- 
tion encouraged him to continue a sort of formal eulogy of 
the lady, which proved to be a defence against foregone 
charges, for Corte retracted an accusation, and said that he 
had no fault to find with the countess. A proposal to join 
the enterprise was put to Merthyr, but his engagement with 
the Chief in Rome saved him from hearing much of the 
marvellous facilities of the plot. “ I should have wished to 
see you to-night, ” Carlo said as they were parting. Merthyr 
named his hotel. Carlo nodded. “ My wife is still slightly 
feeble,” he said. 

“I regret it,” Merthyr rejoined. 

“She is not ill.” 

“No, it cannot be want of courage,” Merthyr spoke at 
random. 

“Yes, that’s true,” said Carlo, as vacantly. “You will 
see her while I am travelling.” 

“ I hope to find the Countess Alessandra well enough to 
receive me.” 

“ Always ; always, ” said Carlo, wishing apparently to say 
more. Merthyr waited an instant, but Carlo broke into a 
conventional smile of adieu. 

“While he is travelling,” Merthyr repeated to Agostino, 
who had stood by during the brief dialogue, and led the 
way to the Corso. 


462 


VITTORIA 


“ He did not say how far ! ” was the old man’s ejaculation. 

“ But, good heaven ! if you think he’s on an unfortunate 
errand, why don’t you stop him, advise him?” Merthyr 
broke out. 

“ Advise him! stop him! my friend. I would advise 
him, if I had the patience of angels ; stop him, if I had the 
power of Lucifer. Did you not see that he shunned speak- 
ing to me? I have been such a perpetual dish of vinegar 
under his nose for the last month, that the poor fellow sniffs 
when I draw near. He must go his way. He leads a tor- 
rent that must sweep him on. Corte, Sana, and the rest 
would be in Borne now, but for him. So should I. Your 
Agostino, however, is not of Bergamo, or of Brescia; he is 
not a madman; simply a poor rheumatic Piedmontese, who 
discerns the point where a united Italy may fix its standard. 
I would start for Borne to-morrow, if I could leave her — 
my soul’s child!” Agostino raised his hand: “I do love 
the woman, Countess Alessandra Ammiani. I say, she is 
a peerless woman. Is she not?” 

“There is none like her,” said Merthyr. 

“A peerless woman, recognized and sacrificed! I cannot 
leave her. If the Government here would lay hands on 
Carlo and do their worst at onpe, I would be off. They are 
too wary. I believe that they are luring him to his ruin. 
I can give no proofs, but I judge by the best evidence. 
What avails my telling him? I lose my temper the moment 
I begin to speak. A curst witch beguiles the handsome 
idiot — poor darling lad that he is ! She has him — can I 
tell you how? She has got him — got him fast! The 
nature of the chains are doubtless innocent, if those which 
a woman throws round us be ever distinguishable. He 
loves his wife — he is not a monster.” 

“ He appears desperately feverish, ” said Merthyr. 

“Did you not notice it? Yes, like a man pushed by his 
destiny out of the path. He is ashamed to hesitate; he 
cannot turn back. Ahead of him he sees a gulf. That 
army of Carlo Alberto may do something under its Pole. 
Prophecy is too easy. I say no more. We may have Lom- 
bardy open ; and if so, my poor boy’s vanity will be crowned : 
he will only have the king and his army against him then.” 

Discoursing in this wise, they reached the caffe where 


THE SHADOW OF CONSPIRACY 


463 


Beppo had appointed to meet his old master, and sat amid 
here and there a whitecoat, and many nods and whispers 
over such news as the privileged journals and the official 
gazette afforded. 

Beppo’s destination was to the Duchess of G-raatli’s 
palace. Nearing it, he perceived Luigi endeavouring to 
gain a passage beside the burly form of Jacob Baumwalder 
Feckelwitz, who presently seized him and hurled him into 
the road. As Beppo was sidling up the courtway, Jacob 
sprang back; Luigi made a rush; Jacob caught them both, 
but they wriggled out of his clutch, and Luigi, being the 
fearfuller, ran the farthest. While he was out of hearing, 
Beppo told Jacob to keep watch upon Luigi, as the bearer 
of an amorous letter from a signor of quality to Aennchen, 
the which he himself desired to obtain sight of; “for the 
wench has caused me three sleepless nights,” he confessed 
frankly. Jacob affected not to understand. Luigi and 
Beppo now leaned against the wall on either side of him 
and baited him till he shook with rage. 

“He is the lord of the duchess, his mistress — what a 
lucky fellow ! ” said Luigi. “When he’s dog at the gates 
no one can approach her. When he isn’t, you can fancy 
what!” “He’s only a mechanical contrivance; he’s not a 
man,” said Beppo. “He’s the principal flea-catcher of the 
palace,” said Luigi; “here he is all day, and at night the 
devil knows where he hunts.” — Luigi hopped in a half- 
circle round the exacerbated J acob, and finally provoked an 
assault that gave an opening to Beppo. They all ran in, 
Luigi last. Jacob chased Beppo up the stairs, lost him, 
and remembered what he had said of the letter borne by 
Luigi, for whom he determined to lie in waiting. “ Better 
two in there than one,” he thought. The two courted his 
Aennchen openly; but Luigi, as the bearer of an amorous 
letter from the signor of quality, who could be no other 
than signor Antonio-Pericles, was the one to be intercepted. 
Like other jealous lovers, Jacob wanted to read Aennchen’s 
answer, to be cured of his fatal passion for the maiden, and 
on this he set the entire force of his mind. 

Bunning up by different staircases, Beppo and Luigi came 
upon Aennchen nearly at the same time. She turned a cold 
face on Beppo, and requested Luigi to follow her. Aston- 


464 


VITTORIA 


ished to see him in such favour, Beppo was ready to pro- 
voke the quarrel before the kiss when she returned; but 
she said that she had obeyed her mistress’s orders, and was 
obeying the duchess in refusing to speak of them, or of 
anything relating to them. She had promised him an 
interview in that little room leading into the duchess’s 
boudoir. He pressed her to conduct him. “ Ah; then it’s 
not for me you come,” she said. Beppo had calculated that 
the kiss would open his way to the room, and the quarrel 
disembarrass him of his pretty companion when there. 
“You have come to listen to conversation again,” said 
Aennchen. “Ach! the fool a woman is to think that you 
Italians have any idea except self-interest when you, when 
you . . . talk nonsense to us. Go away, if you please. 
Good-evening.” She dropped a curtsey with a surly 
coquetry, charming of its kind. Beppo protested that the 
room was dear to him because there first he had known for 
one blissful half-second the sweetness of her mouth. 

“Who told you that persons who don’t like your mistress 
are going to talk in there?” said Aennchen. 

“You,” said Beppo. 

Aennchen drew up in triumph : “ And now will you pre- 
tend that you didn’t come up here to go in there to listen 
to what they say?” 

Beppo clapped hands at her cleverness in trapping him. 
“Hush,” said all her limbs and features, belying the pre- 
vious formal “good-evening.” He refused to be silent, 
thinking it a way of getting to the little antechamber. 
“Then, I tell you, downstairs you go,” said Aennchen 
stiffly. 

“Is it decided?” Beppo asked. “Then, good-evening. 
You detestable German girls can’t love. One step — a 
smile : another step — a kiss. You tit-for-tat minx ! Have 
you no notion of the sacredness of the sentiments which 
inspires me to petition that the place for our interview 
should be there where I tasted ecstatic joy for the space of 
a flash of lightning? I will go; but it is there that I will 
go, and I will await you there, signorina Aennchen. Yes, 
laugh at me ! laugh at me ! ” 

“No; really, I don’t laugh at you, signor Beppo,” said 
Aennchen, protesting in denial of what she was doing. 
“This way.” 


THE SHADOW OF CONSPIRACY 


465 


“No, it’s that way,” said Beppo. 

“ It’s through here.” She opened a door. “ The duchess 
has a reception to-night, and you can’t go round. Ach! 
you would not betray me?” 

“Not if it were the duchess herself,” said Beppo; he 
would refuse to satisfy man’s natural vanity in such a case. 

Eager k) advance to the little antechamber, he allowed 
Aennchen to wait behind him. He heard the door shut and 
a lock turn, and he was in the dark, and alone, left to take 
counsel of his fingers’ ends. 

“She was born to it,” Beppo remarked, to extenuate his 
outwitted cunning, when he found each door of the room 
fast against him. 

On the following night Yittoria was to sing at a concert 
in the Duchess of Graatli’s great saloon, and the duchess 
had humoured Pericles by consenting to his preposterous 
request that his spy should have an opportunity of hearing 
Countess d’Isorella and Irma di Karski in private conver- 
sation together, to discover whether there was any plot of 
any sort to vex the evening’s entertainment; as the jealous 
spite of those two women, Pericles said, was equal to any 
devilry on earth. It happened that Countess d’Isorella 
did not come. Luigi, in despair, was the hearer of a quick 
question and answer dialogue, in the obscure German 
tongue, between Anna von Lenkenstein and Irma di 
Karski; but a happy peep between the hanging curtains 
gave him sight of a letter passing from Anna’s hands to 
Irma’s. Anna quitted her. Irma was looking at the 
superscription of the letter, in the act of passing in her 
steps, when Luigi tore the curtains apart, and sprang on 
her arm like a cat. Before her shrieks could bring suc- 
cour, Luigi was bounding across the court with the letter in 
his possession. A dreadful hug awaited him ; his pockets 
were ransacked, and he was pitched aching into the street. 
Jacob Baumwalder Feckelwitz went straightway under a 
gas-lamp, where he read the address of the letter to Coun- 
tess d’Isorella. He doubted; he had a half-desire to tear 
the letter open. But a rumour of the attack upon Irma had 
spread among the domestics, and Jacob prudently went up 
to his mistress. The duchess was sitting with Laura. She 
received the letter, eyed it all over, and held it to a candle. 


466 


YITTORIA 


Laura’s head was bent in dark meditation. The sudden 
increase of light aroused her, and she asked, “What is 
that? ” 

“A letter from Countess Anna to Countess d’Isorella,” 
said the duchess. 

“Burnt! ” Laura screamed. 

“It’s only fair,” the duchess remarked. 

“From her to that woman! It may be priceless. Stop! 
Let me see what remains. Amalia! are you mad? Oh! 
you false friend. I would have sacrificed my right hand to 
see it.” 

“Try and love me still,” said the duchess, letting her 
take one unburnt corner, and crumble the black tissuey 
fragments to smut in her hands. 

There was no writing; the unburnt corner of the letter 
was a blank. 

Laura fooled the wretched ashes between her palms. 
“Good-night,” she said. “Your face will be of this colour 
to me, my dear, for long.” 

“ I cannot behave disgracefully, even to keep your love, 
my beloved,” said the duchess. 

“You cannot betray a German, you mean,” Laura re- 
torted. “You could let a spy into the house.” 

“ That was a childish matter — merely to satisfy a whim.” 

“ I say you could let a spy into the house. Who is to 
know where the scruples of you women begin? I would 
have given my jewels, my head, my husband’s sword, for a 
sight of that letter. I swear that it concerns us. Yes, us. 
You are a false friend. Fish-blooded creature! may it be 
a year before I look on you again. Hide among your 
miserable set ! ” 

“Judge me when you are cooler, dearest,” said the duch- 
ess, seeking to detain the impetuous sister of her affection 
by the sweeping skirts ; but Laura spurned her touch, and 
went from her. 

Irma drove to Countess d’Isorella’s. Violetta was abed, 
and lay fair and placid as a Titian Venus, while Irma sput- 
tered out her tale, with intermittent sobs. She rose upon 
her elbow, and planting it in her pillow, took half-a-dozen 
puffs x>f a cigarette, and then requested Irma to ring for 
her maid. “Do nothing till you see me again,” she said; 


THE SHADOW OF CONSPIRACY 


467 


“ and take my advice : always get to bed before midnight, 
or you’ll have unmanageable wrinkles in a couple of years. 
If you had been in bed at a prudent hour to-night, this 
scandal would not have occurred.” 

“How can I be in bed? How could I help it?” moaned 
Irma, replying to the abstract rule, and the perplexing illus- 
tration of its force. 

Violetta dismissed her. “After all, my wish is to save 
my poor Amaranto,” she mused. “I am only doing now 
what I should have been doing in the daylight; and if I 
can’t stop him, the Government must; and they will. 
Whatever the letter contained, I can anticipate it. He 
knows my profession and my necessities. I must have 
money. Why not from the rich German woman whom he 
jilted?” 

She attributed Anna’s apparent passion of revenge to a 
secret passion of unrequited love. What else was implied 
by her willingness to part with land and money for the key 
to his machinations ? 

Violetta would have understood a revenge directed against 
Angelo Guidascarpi, as the slayer of Anna’s brother. But of 
him Anna had only inquired once, and carelessly, whether he 
was in Milan. Anna’s mystical semi-patriotism — prompted 
by her hatred of Vittoria, hatred of Carlo as Angelo’s cousin 
and protector, hatred of the Italy which held the three, who 
never took the name Tedesco on their tongues without loath- 
ing — was perfectly hidden from this shrewd head. 

Some extra patrols were in the streets. As she stepped 
into the carriage, a man rushed up, speaking hoarsely and 
inarticulately, and jumped in beside her. She had discerned 
Barto Bizzo in time to give directions to her footman, before 
she was addressed by a body of gendarmes in pursuit, whom 
she mystified by entreating them to enter her house and 
search it through, if they supposed that any evil-doer had 
taken advantage of the open door. They informed her that 
a man had escaped from the civil prison. “ Poor creature ! ” 
said the countess, with womanly pity ; “ but you must see 
that he is not in my house. How could three of you let one 
escape ? ” She drove off laughing at their vehement asser- 
tion that he would not have escaped from them. Barto 
Bizzo made her conduct him to Countess Ammiani’s gates. 


468 


VITTORIA 


Violetta was frightened by his eyes when she tried to 
persuade him in her best coaxing manner to avoid Count 
Ammiani. In fact she apprehended that he would be very 
much in her way. She had no time for chagrin at her loss 
of power over him, though she was sensible of vexation. 
Barto folded his arms and sat with his head in his chest, 
silent, till they reached the gates, when he said in French, 
“ Madame, I am a nameless person in your train. Gabble ! ” 
he added, when the countess advised him not to enter ; nor 
would he allow her to precede him by more than one step. 
Violetta sent up her name. The man had shaken her nerves. 
“ At least, remember that your appearance should be decent,” 
she said, catching sight of blood on his hands, and torn gar- 
ments. “I expect, madame,” he replied, “I shall not have 
time to wash before I am laid out. My time is short. I 
want tobacco. The washing can be done by-and-by, but not 
the smoking.” 

They were ushered up to the reception-room, where 
Countess Ammiani, Vittoria, and Carlo sat, awaiting the 
visitor whose unexpected name, cast in their midst at so 
troubled a season, had clothed her with some of the mid- 
night’s terrors. 


CHAPTER XLIII 

THE LAST MEETING IN MILAN 

Barto Rizzo had silence about him without having 
to ask for it, when he followed Violetta into Countess 
Ammiani’s saloon of reception. Carlo was leaning over 
his mother’s chair, holding Vittoria’s wrist across it, and 
so enclosing her, while both young faces were raised to the 
bowed forehead of the countess. They stood up. Violetta 
broke through the formal superlatives of an Italian greet- 
ing. “ Speak to me alone,” she murmured for Carlo’s ear : 
and glancing at Barto: “Here is a madman; a' mild one, 
I trust.” She contrived to show that she was not responsi- 
ble for his intrusion. Countess Ammiani gathered Vittoria 
in her arms ; Carlo stepped a pace before them. Terror was 


THE LAST MEETING IN MILAN 


469 


on the venerable lady’s face, wrath on her son’s. As he 
fronted Barto, he motioned a finger to the curtain hangings, 
and Violetta, quick at reading signs, found his bare sword 
there. “But you will not want it,” she remarked, hand- 
ing the hilt to him, and softly eyeing the impression of 
her warm touch on the steel as it passed. 

“ Carlo, thou son of Paolo ! Countess Marcellina, wife of 
a true patriot ! stand aside, both of you. It is between the 
Countess Alessandra and myself,” so the man commenced, 
with his usual pomp of interjection. “ Swords and big eyes 
— are they things to stop me ? ” Barto laughed scornfully. 
He had spoken in the full roll of his voice, and the sword 
was hard back for the thrust. 

Vittoria disengaged herself from the countess. “Speak 
to me,” she said, dismayed by the look of what seemed an 
exaltation of madness in Barto’s visage, but firm as far as 
the trembling of her limbs would let her be. 

He dropped to her feet and kissed them. 

“ Emilia Alessandra Belloni ! Vittoria ! Countess Ales- 
sandra Ammiani ! pity me. Hear this : — I hated you as the 
devil is hated. Yesterday I woke up in prison to hear that 
I must adore you. God of all the pits of punishment ! was 
there ever one like this ? I had to change heads.” 

It was the language of a distorted mind, and lamentable 
to hear when a sob shattered his voice. 

« Am I mad ? ” he asked piteously, clasping his temples. 

“You are as we are, if you weep,” said Vittoria, to sooth 
him. 

“ Then I have been mad ! ” he cried, starting. “ I knew 
you a wicked virgin — signora contessa, confess to me, mar- 
riage has changed you. Has it not changed you ? In the 
name of the Father of the Saints, help me out of it : — my 
brain reels backwards. You were false, but marriage — it 
acts in this way with you women; yes, that we know — you 
were married, and you said, ‘ How let us be faithful.’ Did 
you not say that ? I am forgiving, though none think it. 
You have only to confess. If you will not, — oh!” He 
smote his face, groaning. 

Carlo spoke a stern word in an undertone, counselling him 
to be gone. 

“ If you will not — what was she to do ? ” Barto cut the 


470 


VITTORIA 


question to interrogate his strayed wits. “Look at me, 
Countess Alessandra. I was in the prison. I heard that my 
Rosellina had a tight heart. She cried for her master, poor 
heathen, and I sprang out of the walls to her. There — there 
— she lay like a breathing board ; a woman with a body like 
a coffin half alive ; not an eye to show ; nothing but a body 
and a whisper. She perished righteously, for she disobeyed. 
She acted without my orders : she dared to think ! She will 
be damned, for she would have vengeance before she went. 
She glorified you over me — over Barto Rizzo. Oh ! she 
shocked my soul. But she is dead, and I am her slave. 
Every word was of you. Take another head, Barto Rizzo : 
your old one was mad : she said that to my soul. She died 
blessing you above me. I saw the last bit of life go up from 
her mouth blessing you. It’s heard by this time in heaven, 
and it’s written. Then I have had two years of madness. 
If she is right, I was wrong ; I was a devil of hell. I know 
there’s an eye given to dying creatures, and she looked with 
it, and she said, the soul of Rinaldo Guidascarpi, her angel, 
was glorifying you; and she thanked the sticking of her 
heart, when she tried to stab you, poor fool ! ” 

Carlo interrupted: “Now go; you have said enough.” 
“No, let him speak,” said Yittoria. She supposed that 
Barto was going to say that he had not given the order for 
her assassination. “ You do not wish me dead, signore ? ” 
“Nothing that is not standing in my way, signora contessa,” 
said Barto ; and his features blazed with a smile of happy 
self -justification. “ I have killed a sentinel this night : Provi- 
dence placed him there. I wish for no death, but I 
punish, and — ah ! the cursed sight of the woman who calls 
me mad for two years. She thrusts a bar of iron in an 
engine at work, and says, Work on ! work on ! Were you 
not a traitress ? Countess Alessandra, were you not once 
a traitress ? Oh ! confess it ; save my head. Reflect, dear 
lady! it’s cruel to make a man of a saintly sincerity 
look back — I count the months — seventeen months ! to look 
back seventeen months, and see that his tongue was a 
clapper, — his will, his eyes, his ears, all about him, every- 
thing, stirred like a pot on the fire. I traced you. I saw 
your treachery. I said — I, Jam her Day of Judgement. 
She shall look on me and perish, struck down by her own 


THE LAST MEETING IN MILAN 


471 


treachery. Were my senses false to me? I had lived in 
virtuous fidelity to my principles. None can accuse me. 
Why were my senses false, if my principles were true ? I 
said you were a traitress. I saw it from the first. I had 
the divine contempt for women. My distrust of a woman 
was the eye of this brain, and I said — Follow her, dog her, 
find her out ! I proved her false ; but her devilish cunning 
deceived every other man in the world. Oh ! let me bellow, 
for it’s me she proves the mass of corruption ! To-morrow 
I die, and if I am mad now, what sort of a curse is that ? 
Now to-morrow is an hour — a laugh ! But if I’ve not been 
shot from a true bow — if I’ve been a sham for two years — if 
my name, and nature, bones, brains, were all false things 
hunting a shadow, Countess Alessandra, see the misery of 
Barto Bizzo ! Look at those two years, and say that I had 
my head. Answer me, as you love your husband : are you 
heart and soul with him in the fresh fight for Lombardy ? ” 

He said this with a look penetrating and malignant, and 
then by a sudden flash pitifully entreating. 

Carlo feared to provoke, revolted from the thought of 
slaying him. “Yes, yes,” he interposed, “my wife is heart 
and soul in it. Go.” 

Barto looked from him to her with the eyes of a dog that 
awaits an order. 

Yittoria gathered her strength, and said: — 

“I am not.” 

“ It is her answer ! ” Barto roared, and from deep dejec- 
tion his whole countenance radiated. “ She says it — she 
might give the lie to a saint! I was never mad. I saw 
the spot, and put my finger on it, and not a madman can 
do that. My two years are my own. Mad now, for, see ! 
I worship the creature. She is not heart and soul in it. 
She is not in it at all. She is a little woman, a lovely 
thing, a toy, a cantatrice. Joy to the big heart of Barto 
Kizzo ! I am for Brescia ! ” 

He flung his arm like a banner, and ran out. 

Carlo laid his sword on a table. Yittoria’s head was on 
his mother’s bosom. 

The hour was too full of imminent grief for either of the 
three to regard this scene as other than a gross intrusion 
ended. 


472 


YITTORIA 


“Why did you deny my words?” Carlo said coldly. 

“I could not lie to make him wretched,” she replied in a 
low murmur. 

“ Do you know what that ‘I am for Brescia ’ means? He 
goes to stir the city before a soul is ready.” 

“ I warned you that I should speak the truth of myself 
to-night, dearest.” 

“ You should discern between speaking truth to a mad- 
man, and to a man.” 

Yittoria did not lift her eyes, and Carlo beckoned to Vio- 
letta, with whom he left the room. 

“He is angry,” Countess Ammiani murmured. “My 
child, you cannot deal with men in a fever unless you learn 
to dissemble; and there is exemption for doing it, both in 
plain sense, and in our religion. If I could arrest him, I 
would speak boldly. It is, alas! vain to dream of that; 
and it is therefore an unkindness to cause him irritation. 
Carlo has given way to you by allowing you to be here 
when his friends assemble. He knows your intention to 
speak. He has done more than would have been per- 
mitted by my husband to me, though I too was well- 
beloved.” 

Yittoria continued silent that her head might be cherished 
where it lay. She was roused from a stupor by hearing 
new voices. Laura’s lips came pressing to her cheek. 
Colonel Corte, Agostino, Marco Sana, and Angelo Guida- 
scarpi, saluted her. Angelo she kissed. 

“That lady should be abed and asleep,” Corte was heard 
to say. 

The remark passed without notice. Angelo talked apart 
with Yittoria. He had seen the dying of the woman whose 
hand had been checked in the act of striking by the very 
passion of animal hatred which raised it. He spoke of her 
affectionately, attesting to the fact that Barto Rizzo had 
not prompted her guilt. Yittoria moaned at a short outline 
that he gave of the last minutes between those two, in 
which her name was dreadfully and fatally, incomprehen- 
sibly prominent. 

All were waiting impatiently for Carlo’s return. 

When he appeared he informed his mother that the 
Countess d’Isorella would remain in the house that night, 


THE LAST MEETING IN MILAN 473 

and his mother passed out to her abhorred guest, who, for 
the time at least, could not be doing further mischief. 

It was a meeting for the final disposition of things before 
the outbreak. Carlo had begun to speak when Corte drew 
his attention to the fact that ladies were present, at which 
Carlo put out his hand as if introducing them, and went on 
speaking. 

“Your wife is here,” said Corte. 

“ My wife and signora Piaveni,” Carlo rejoined. “ I have 
consented to my wife’s particular wish to be present.” 

“The signora Piaveni’s opinions are known: your wife’s 
are not.” 

“Countess Alessandra shares mine,” said Laura, rather 
tremulously. 

Countess Ammiani at the same time returned and took 
Vittoria’s hand and pressed it with force. Carlo looked at 
them both. 

“ I have to ask your excuses, gentlemen. My wife, my 
mother, and signora Piaveni, have served the cause we wor- 
ship sufficiently to claim a right — I am sorry to use such 
phrases; you understand my meaning. Permit them to 
remain. I have to tell you that Barto Rizzo has been 
here : he has started for Brescia. I should have had to kill 
him to stop him — a measure that I did not undertake.” 

“ Being your duty ! ” remarked Corte. 

Agostino corrected him with a sarcasm. 

“ I cannot allow the presence of ladies to exclude a com- 
ment on manifest indifference,” said Corte. “Pass on to 
the details, if you have any.” 

“The details are these,” Carlo resumed, too proud to 
show a shade of self-command; “my cousin Angelo leaves 
Milan before morning. You, Colonel Corte, will be in 
Bergamo at noon to-morrow. Marco and Angelo will await 
my coming in Brescia, where we shall find Giulio and the 
rest. I join them at five on the following afternoon, and 
my arrival signals the revolt. We have decided that the 
news from the king’s army is good.” 

A perceptible shudder in Vittoria’s frame at this conclud- 
ing sentence caught Corte ’s eye. 

“Are you dissatisfied with that arrangement?” he ad- 
dressed her boldly. 


474 


YITTORIA 


“I am, Colonel Corte,” she replied. So simple was the 
answering tone of her voice that Corte had not a word. 

“It is my husband who is going,” Yittoria spoke on 
steadily ; “ him I am prepared to sacrifice, as I am myself. 
If he thinks it right to throw himself into Brescia, nothing 
is left for me but to thank him for having done me the 
honour to consult me. His will is firm. I trust to God 
that he is wise. I look on him now as one of many brave 
men whose lives belong to Italy, and if they all are mis- 
directed and perish, we have no more; we are lost. The 
king is on the Ticino; the Chief is in Borne. I desire to 
entreat you to take counsel before you act in anticipation of 
the king’s fortune. I see that it is a crushed life in Lom- 
bardy. In Borne there is one who can lead and govern. 
He has suffered and is calm. He calls to you to strengthen 
his hands. My prayer to you is to take counsel. I know 
the hour is late; but it is not too late for wisdom. For- 
give me if I am not speaking humbly. Brescia is but 
Brescia; Borne is Italy. I have understood little of my 
country until these last days, though I have both talked 
and sung of her glories. I know that a deep duty binds 
you to Bergamo and to Brescia — poor Milan we must not 
think of. You are not personally pledged to Borne: yet 
Borne may have the greatest claims on you. The heart of 
our country is beginning to beat there. Colonel Corte! 
signor Marco ! my Agostino ! my cousin Angelo ! it is not 
a woman asking for the safety of her husband, but one of 
the blood of Italy who begs to offer you her voice, without 
seeking to disturb your judgement.” 

She ceased. 

“Without seeking to disturb their judgement!” cried 
Laura. “Why not, when the judgement is in error?” 

To Laura’s fiery temperament Yittoria’ s speech had been 
feebleness. She was insensible to that which the men felt 
conveyed to them by the absence of emotion in the language 
of a woman so sorrowfully placed. “Wait,” she said, 
“ wait for the news from Carlo Alberto, if you determine to 
play at swords and guns in narrow streets.” She spoke 
long and vehemently, using irony, coarse and fine, with the 
eloquence which was her gift. In conclusion she apostro- 
phized Colonel Corte as one who had loved him might have 


THE LAST MEETING IN MILAN 


475 


done. He was indeed that figure of indomitable strength 
to which her spirit, exhausted by intensity of passion, clung 
more than to any other on earth, though she did not love 
him, scarcely liked him. 

Corte asked her curiously — for she had surprised and 
vexed his softer side — why she distinguished him with 
such remarkable phrases only to declare her contempt for 
him. 

“It’s the flag whipping the flag-pole,” murmured Agos- 
tino ; and he now spoke briefly in support of the expedition 
to Borne ; or at least in favour of delay until the King of 
Sardinia had gained a battle. While he was speaking, 
Merthyr entered the room, and behind him a messenger who 
brought word that Bergamo had risen. 

The men drew hurriedly together, and Countess Ammi- 
ani, Vittoria and Laura stood ready to leave them. 

“You will give me five minutes?” Vittoria whispered to 
her husband, and he nodded. 

“ Merthyr,” she said, passing him, “can I have your 
word that you will not go from me?” 

Merthyr gave her his word after he had looked on her face. 

“ Send to me every two hours, that I may know you are 
near,” she added; “do not fear waking me. Or, no, dear 
friend; why should I have any concealment from you? Be 
not a moment absent, if you would not have me fall to the 
ground a second time: follow me.” 

Even as he hesitated, for he had urgent stuff to com- 
municate to Carlo, he could see a dreadful whiteness rising 
on her face, darkening the circles of her eyes. 

“It's life or death, my dearest, and I am bound to live,” 
she said. Her voice sprang up from tears. 

Merthyr turned and tried in vain to get a hearing among 
the excited, voluble men. They shook his hand, patted his 
shoulder, and counselled him to leave them. He obtained 
Carlo’s promise that he would not quit the house without 
granting him an interview; after which he passed out to 
Vittoria, where Countess Ammiani and Laura sat weeping 
by the door. 


476 


YITTORIA 


CHAPTER XLIY 

THE WIFE AND THE HUSBAND 

When they were alone Merthyr said: “I cannot give 
many minutes, not much time. I have to speak to your 
husband.” 

She answered: “Give me many minutes — much time. 
All other speaking is vain here.” 

“It concerns his safety.” 

“It will not save him.” 

“But I have evidence that he is betrayed. His plans are 
known; a trap is set for him. If he moves, he walks into 
a pit.” 

“You would talk reason, Merthyr,” Yittoria sighed. 
“Talk it to me. I can listen; I thirst for it. I beat at 
the bars of a cage all day. When I saw you this afternoon, 
I looked on another life. It was too sudden, and I swooned. 
That was my only show of weakness. Since then you are 
the only strength I feel.” 

“Have they all become Barto Rizzos?” Merthyr ex- 
claimed. 

“Beloved, I will open my mind to you,” said Yittoria. 
“ I am cowardly, and I thought I had such courage ! To- 
night a poor mad creature has been here, who has oppressed 
me, I cannot say how long, with real fear — that I only 
understand now that I know the little ground I had for it. 
I am even pleased that one like Barto Rizzo should see me 
in a better light. I find the thought smiling in my heart 
when every other thing is utterly dark there. You have 
heard that Carlo goes to Brescia. When I was married, 
I lost sight of Italy, and everything but happiness. I suffer 
as I deserve for it now. I could have turned my husband 
from this black path; I preferred to dream and sing. I 
would not see — it was my pride that would not let me see 
his error. My cowardice would not let me wound him with 
a single suggestion. You say that he is betrayed. Then 
he is betrayed by the woman who has never been unintelli- 
gible to me. We were in Turin surrounded by intrigues, 


THE WIFE AND THE HUSBAND 


477 


and there I thanked her so much for leaving me the days 
with my husband by Lake Orta that I did not seek to open 
his eyes to her. We came to Milan, and here I have been 
thanking her for the happy days in Turin. Carlo is no 
longer to blame if he will not listen to me. I have helped 
to teach him that I am no better than any of these Italian 
women whom he despises. I spoke to him as his wife 
should do, at last. He feigned to think me jealous, and I 
too remember the words of the reproach, as if they had a 
meaning. Ah, my friend! I would say of nothing that it 
is impossible, except this task of recovering lost ground 
with one who is young. Experience of trouble has made 
me older than he. When he accused me of jealousy, I could 
mention Countess d’Isorella’s name no more. I confess to 
that. Yet I knew my husband feigned. I knew that he 
could not conceive the idea of jealousy existing in me, as 
little as I could imagine unfaithfulness in him. But my 
lips would not take her name! Wretched cowardice cannot 
go farther. I spoke of Rome. As often as I spoke, that 
name was enough to shake me off : he had but to utter it, 
and I became dumb. He did it to obtain peace; for no 
other cause. So, by degrees, I have learnt the fatal truth. 
He has trusted her, for she is very skilful ; distrusting her, 
for she is treacherous. He has, therefore, believed exces- 
sively in his ability to make use of her, and to counteract 
her baseness. I saw his error from the first; and I went 
on dreaming and singing; and now this night has comeP’ 

Vittoria shadowed her eyes. 

“ I will go to him at once, ” said Merthyr. 

“Yes; I am relieved. Go, dear friend,” she sobbed; 
“you have given me tears, as I hoped. You will not turn 
him; had it been possible, could I have kept you from him 
so long? I know that you will not turn him from his pur- 
pose, for I know what a weight it is that presses him for- 
ward in that path. Do not imagine our love to be broken. 
He will convince you that it is not. He has the nature of 
an angel. He permitted me to speak before these men 
to-night — feeble thing that I am! It was a last effort. I 
might as well have tried to push a rock.” 

She rose at a noise of voices in the hall below. 

« They are going, Merthyr. See him now. There may 


4T8 


VITTORIA 


be help in heaven; if one could think it! If help were 
given to this country — if help were only visible! The 
want of it makes us all without faith.” 

“ Hush ! you may hear good news from Carlo Alberto in 
a few hours,” said Merthyr. 

“ Ask Laura; she has witnessed how he can be shattered,” 
Yittoria replied bitterly. 

Merthyr pressed her fingers. He was met by Carlo on 
the stairs. 

“Quick! ” Carlo said; “I have scarce a minute to spare. 
I have my adieux to make, and the tears have set in already. 
First, a request: you will promise to remain beside my 
wife; she will want more than her own strength.” 

Such a request, coming from an Italian husband, was so 
great a proof of the noble character of his love and his 
knowledge of the woman he loved, that Merthyr took him 
in his arms and kissed him. 

“ Get it over quickly, dear good fellow,” Carlo murmured; 
“you have something to tell me. Whatever it is, it’s air; 
but I’ll listen.” 

They passed into a vacant room. 

“You know you are betrayed,” Merthyr began. 

“Not exactly that,” said Carlo, humming carelessly. 

“Positively and absolutely. The Countess d’Isorella has 
sold your secrets.” 

“I commend her to the profit she has made by it.” 

“Do you play with your life?” 

Carlo was about to answer in the tone he had assumed for 
the interview. He checked the laugh on his lips. 

“She must have some regard for my life, such as it’s 
worth, since, to tell you the truth, she is in the house now, 
and came here to give me fair warning.” 

“Then, you trust her.” 

“I? Not a single woman in the world! — that is, for a 
conspiracy.” 

It was an utterly fatuous piece of speech. Merthyr 
allowed it to slip, and studied him to see where he was 
vulnerable. 

“She is in the house, you say. Will you cause her to 
come before me?” 

“Curiously,” said Carlo, “I kept her for some purpose 


THE WIFE AND THE HUSBAND 479 

of the sort. Will I? and have a scandal now? Oh! no. 
Let her sleep.” 

Whether he spoke from noble-mindedness or indifference, 
Merthyr could not guess. 

“ I have a message from your friend Luciano. He sends 
you his love, in case he should be shot the first, and says 
that when Lombardy is free he hopes you will not forget 
old comrades who are in Lome.” 

“Forget him! I would to God I could sit and talk of him 
for hours. Luciano! Luciano! He has no wife.” 

Carlo spoke on hoarsely. “ Tell me what authority you 
have for charging Countess d’Isorella with . . . with what- 
ever it may be.” 

“A conversation between Countess Anna of Lenkenstein 
and a Major Nagen, in the Duchess of Graatli’s house, was 
overheard by our Beppo. They spoke German. The rascal 
had a German sweetheart with him. She imprisoned him 
for some trespass, and had come stealing in to rescue him, 
when those two entered the room. Countess Anna detailed 
to Nagen the course of your recent plotting. She named 
the hour this morning when you are to start for Brescia. 
She stated what force you have, what arms you expect; she 
named you all.” 

“ Nagen — Nagen,” Carlo repeated; “ the man’s unknown 
to me.” 

“It’s sufficient that he is an Austrian officer.” 

“Quite. She hates me, and she has reason, for she’s 
aware that I mean to fight her lover, and choose my time. 
The blood of my friends is on that man’s head.” 

“I will finish what I have to say,” pursued Merthyr. 
“ When Beppo had related as much as he could make out 
from his sweetheart’s translation, I went straight to the 
duchess. She is an Austrian, and a good and reasonable 
woman. She informed me that a letter addressed by 
Countess Anna to Countess d’Isorella fell into her hands 
this night. She burnt it unopened. I leave it to you to 
consider whether you have been betrayed and who has 
betrayed you. The secret was bought. Beppo himself 
caught the words, ‘from a mercenary Italian.’ The duchess 
tells me that Countess Anna is in the habit of alluding to 
Countess d’Isorella in those terms.” 


480 


VITTORIA 


Carlo stretched his arms like a man who cannot hide the 
yawning fit. 

“ I promised my wife five minutes, though we have had 
the worst of the parting over. Perhaps you will wait for 
me; I may have a word to say.” 

He was absent for little more than the space named. 
When he returned, he was careful to hide his face. He 
locked the door, and leading Merthyr to an inner room, 
laid his watch on the table, and said: “Now, friend, you 
will see that I have nothing to shrink from, for I am going 
to do execution upon myself, and before him whom I would, 
above all other men, have think well of me. My wife sup- 
poses that I am pledged to this Brescian business because I 
am insanely patriotic. If I might join Luciano to-morrow 
I would shout like a boy. I would be content to serve as 
the lowest in the ranks, if I might be with you all under 
the Chief. Borne crowns him, and Brescia is my bloody 
ditch, and it is deserved! When I was a little younger — 
I am a boy still, no doubt — I had the honour to be distin- 
guished by a handsome woman; and when I grew a little 
older, I discovered by chance that she had wit. The lady is 
the Countess Violetta d’Isorella. It is a grief to me to know 
that she is sordid: it hurts my vanity the more. Perhaps 
you begin to perceive that vanity governs me. The signora 
Laura has not expressed her opinion on this subject with 
any reserve, but to Violetta belongs the merit of having 
seen it without waiting for the signs. First — it is a small 
matter, but you are English — let me assure you that my 
wife has had no rival. I have taunted her with jealousy 
when I knew that it was neither in her nature to feel it, 
nor in mine to give reason for it. No man who has a spark 
of his Maker in him could be unfaithful to such a woman. 
When Lombardy was crushed, we were in the dust. I 
fancy we none of us knew how miserably we had fallen — 
we, as men. The purest — I dare say, the bravest — 
marched to Borne. God bless my Luciano there! But I, 
sir, I, my friend, I, Merthyr, I said proudly that I would 
not abandon a beaten country: and I was admired for my 
devotion. The dear old poet, Agostino, praised me. It 
stopped his epigrams — during a certain time, at least. 
Colonel Corte admired me. Marco Sana, Giulio Bandi- 


THE WIFE AND THE HUSBAND 


481 


nelli admired me. Vast numbers admired me. I need not 
add that I admired myself. I plunged into intrigues with 
princes, and priests, and republicans. A clever woman was 
at my elbow. In the midst of all this, my marriage: I had 
seven weeks of peace; and then I saw what I was. You 
feel that you are tired, when you want to go another way : 
and you feel that you have been mad when you want to 
undo your work. But I could not break the chains I had 
wrought, for I was a chief of followers. The men had 
come from exile, or they had refused to join the Roman 
enterprise : — they, in fact, had bound themselves to me ; 
and that means, I was irrevocably bound to them. I had 
an insult to wipe out: I refrained from doing it, sincerely, 
I may tell you, on the ground that this admired life of 
mine was precious. I will heap no more clumsy irony on 
it: I can pity it. Do you see now how I stand? I know 
that I cannot rely on the king’s luck or on the skill of his 
generals, or on the power of his army, or on the spirit in 
Lombardy : neither on men nor on angels. But I cannot 
draw back. I have set going a machine that’s merciless. 
From the day it began working, every moment has added 
to its force. Do not judge me by your English eyes: — 
other lands, other habits; other habits, other thoughts. 
And besides, if honour said nothing, simple humanity 
would preserve me from leaving my band to perish like 
a flock of sheep.” 

He uttered this with a profound conviction of his quality 
as leader, that escaped the lurid play of self-inspection 
which characterized what he had previously spoken, and 
served singularly in bearing witness to the truth of his 
charge against himself. 

“Useless!” he said, waving his hand at anticipated re- 
monstrances. “Look with the eyes of my country; not 
with your own, my friend. I am disgraced if I do not go 
out. My friends are disgraced if I do not head them in 
Brescia — sacrificed! — murdered! — how can I say what? 
Can I live under disgrace or remorse? The king stakes on 
his army; I on the king. Whether he fights and wins, or 
fights and loses, I go out. I have promised my men — 
promised them success, I believe ! — God forgive me ! Did 
you ever see a fated man before? None had plotted against 


482 


VITTORIA 


me. I have woven my own web, and that’s the fatal thing. 
I have a wife, the sweetest woman of her time. Good- 
night to her! our parting is over.” 

He glanced at his watch. “Perhaps she will be at the 
door below. Her heart beats like mine just now. You 
wish to say that you think me betrayed, and therefore I 
may draw back? Did you not hear that Bergamo has 
risen? The Brescians are up too by this time. Gallant 
Brescians! they never belie the proverb in their honour; 
and to die among them would be sweet if I had all my 
manhood about me. You would have me making a scene 
with Violetta.” 

“ Set the woman face to face with me ! ” cried Merthyr, 
sighting a gleam of hope. 

Carlo smiled. “ Can she bear my burden though she be 
ten times guilty? Let her sleep. I have her here harm- 
less for the night. The Brescians are up: — that’s an hour 
that has struck, and there’s no calling it to move a step in 
the rear. Brescia under the big Eastern hill which throws 
a cloak on it at sunrise ! Brescia is always the eagle that 
looks over Lombardy! And Bergamo! you know the 
terraces of Bergamo. Aren’t they like a morning sky? 
Dying there is not death; it’s flying into the dawn. You 
Romans envy us. Come, confess it; you envy us. You 
have no Alps, no crimson hills, nothing but old walls to 
look on while you fight. Farewell, Merthyr Powys. I 
hear my servant’s foot outside. My horse is awaiting me 
saddled, a mile from the city. Perhaps I shall see my wife 
again at the door below, or in heaven. Addio ! Kiss Luci- 
ano for me. Tell him that I knew myself as well as he 
did, before the end came. Enrico, Emilio, and the others 
— tell them I love them. I doubt if there will ever be but 
a ghost of me to fight beside them in Rome. And there’s 
no honour, Merthyr, in a ghost’s fighting, because he’s shot- 
proof; so I won’t say what the valiant disembodied I may 
do by-and-by.” 

He held his hands out, with the light soft smile of one who 
asks forgiveness for flippant speech, and concluded firmly: 
“I have talked enough, and you are the man of sense I 
thought you; for to give me advice is childish when no 
power on earth could make me follow it. Addio ! Kiss me.” 


SHOWS MANY PATHS CONVERGING TO THE END 483 


They embraced. Merthyr said no more than that he 
would place messengers on the road to Brescia to carry 
news of the king’s army. His voice was thick, and when 
Carlo laughed at him, his sensations strangely reversed 
their situations. 

There were two cloaked figures at different points in the 
descent of the stairs. These rose severally at Carlo’s ap- 
proach, took him to their bosoms, and kissed him in silence. 
They were his mother and Laura. A third crouched by the 
door of the courtyard, which was his wife. 

Merthyr kept aloof until the heavy door rolled a long dull 
sound. Yittoria’s head was shawled over. She stood where 
her husband had left her, groping for him with one hand, 
that closed tremblingly hard on Merthyr when he touched 
it. Not a word was uttered in the house. 


CHAPTER XLV 

SHOWS MANY PATHS CONVERGING TO THE END 

Until daylight Merthyr sat by himself, trying to realize 
the progressive steps of the destiny which seemed like a vis- 
ible hand upon Count Ammiani, that he might know it to be 
nothing else than Carlo’s work. He sat in darkness in the 
room where Carlo had spoken, thinking of him as living 
and dead. The brilliant life in Carlo protested against 
a possible fatal tendency in his acts so irrevocable as to 
plunge him to destruction when his head was clear, his 
blood cool, and a choice lay open to him. That brilliant 
young life, that fine face, the tones of Carlo’s voice, swept 
about Merthyr, accusing him of stupid fatalism. Grief 
stopped his answer to the charge; but in his wise mind he 
knew Carlo to have surveyed things justly; and that the 
Fates are within us. Those which are the forces of the 
outer world are as shadows to the power we have created 
within us. He felt this because it was his gathered wis- 
dom. Human compassion, and love for the unhappy youth, 
crushed it in his heart, and he marvelled how he could have 
been paralyzed when he had a chance of interceding. Can 


484 


VITTORIA 


a man stay a torrent? But a noble and fair young life in 
peril will not allow our philosophy to liken it to things of 
nature. The downward course of a fall that takes many 
waters till it rushes irresistibly is not the course of any 
life. Yet it is true that our destiny is of our own weaving. 
Carlo’s involvements cast him into extreme peril, almost 
certain death, unless he abjured his honour, dearer than a 
life made precious by love. Merthyr saw that it was not 
vanity, but honour; for Carlo stood pledged to lead a for- 
lorn enterprise, the ripeness of his own scheming. In the 
imminent hour Carlo had recognized his position as Merthyr 
with the wisdom of years looked on it. That was what had 
paralyzed the older man, though he could not subsequently 
trace the cause. Thinking of the beauty of the youth, hus- 
band of the woman who was to his soul utterly an angel, 
Merthyr sat in the anguish of self-accusation, believing 
that some remonstrance, some inspired word, might have 
turned him, and half dreading to sound his own heart, as 
if an evil knowledge of his nature haunted it. 

He rose up at last with a cry. The door opened, and 
Giacinta, Yittoria’s maid, appeared, bearing a lamp. She 
had been sitting outside, waiting to hear him stir before 
she intruded. He touched her cheek kindly, and thought 
that one could do little better than die, if need were, in the 
service of such a people. She said that her mistress was 
kneeling. She wished to make coffee for him, and Merthyr 
let her do it, knowing the comfort there is to a woman in 
the ministering occupation of her hands. It was soon day- 
light. Beppo had not come back to the house. 

“No one has left the house?” Merthyr asked. 

“ Not since ” she answered convulsively. 

“The Countess d’Isorella is here?” 

“Yes, signore.” 

“Asleep?” he put the question mournfully, in remem- 
brance of Carlo’s “Let her sleep!” 

“Yes, signore; like the first night after confession.” 

“ She resides, I think, in the Corso Venezia. When she 
awakens, let her know that I request to have the honour of 
conducting her.” 

“Yes, signore. Her carriage is still at the gates. The 
countess’s horses are accustomed to stand.” 


SHOWS MANY PATHS CONVERGING TO THE END 485 


Merthyr knew this for a hint against his leaving, as well 
as against the lady’s character. 

“ Let your mistress be assured that I shall on no account 
be long absent at any time.” 

“Signore, I shall do so,” said Giacinta. 

She brought him word soon after, that Countess d’Isorella 
was stirring. Merthyr met Violetta on the stairs. 

“Can it be true?” she accosted him first. 

“Count Ammiani has left for Brescia,” he replied. 

“ In spite of my warning? ” 

Merthyr gave space for her to pass into the room. She 
appeared undecided, saying that she had a dismal apprehen- 
sion of her not having dismissed her coachman overnight. 

“ In spite of my warning, ” she murmured again, “ he has 
really gone? Surely I cannot have slept more than three 
hours.” 

“It was Count Ammiani’s wish that you should enjoy 
your full sleep undisturbed in his house,” said Merthyr. 
“ As regards your warning to him, he has left Milan per- 
fectly convinced of the gravity of a warning that comes 
from you.” 

Violetta shrugged lightly. “Then all we have to do is 
to pray for the success of Carlo Alberto.” 

“Oh! pardon me, countess,” Merthyr rejoined, “prayers 
may be useful, but you at least have something to do 
besides.” 

His eyes caught hers firmly as they were letting a wild 
look of interrogation fall on him, and he continued with 
perfect courtesy, “You will accompany me to see Countess 
Anna of Lenkenstein. You have great influence, madame. 
It is not Count Ammiani’s request; for, as I informed you, 
it was his wish that you should enjoy your repose. The 
request is mine, because his life is dear to me. Nagen, I 
think, is the name of the Austrian officer who has started 
for Brescia.” 

She had in self-defence to express surprise while he 
spoke, which compelled her to meet his mastering sight 
and submit to a struggle of vision sufficient to show him 
that he had hit a sort of guilty consciousness. Otherwise 
she was not discomposed, and with marvellous sagacity she 
accepted the forbearance he assumed, not affecting inno- 


486 


VITTORIA 


cence to challenge it, as silly criminals always do when 
they are exposed, but answering quite in the tone of inno- 
cence, and so throwing the burden by an appearance of 
mutual consent on some unnamed third person. 

“Certainly; let us go to Countess Anna of Lenkenstein, 
if you think fit. I have to rely on your judgement. I 
quite abjure my own. If I have to plead for anything, I 
am going before a woman, remember.” 

“ I do not forget it, ” said Merthyr. 

“The expedition to Brescia may be unfortunate,” she 
resumed hurriedly; “I wish it had not been undertaken. 
At any rate, it rescues Count Ammiani from an expedition 
to Borne, and his slavish devotion to that priest-hating man 
whom he calls, or called, his Chief. At Brescia he is not 
outraging the head of our religion. That is a gain.” 

“ A gain for him in the next world? ” said Merthyr. “I 
believe that Countess Anna of Lenkenstein is also a fervent 
Catholic; is she not?” 

“I trust so.” 

“ On behalf of her peace of mind, I trust so, too. In that 
•case, she also must be a sound sleeper.” 

“We shall have to awaken her. What excuse — what 
am I to say to her?” 

“I beg you to wait for the occasion, Countess d’Isorella. 
The words will come.” 

Violetta bit her lip. She had consented to this extraor- 
dinary step in an amazement. As she contemplated it 
now, it seemed worse than a partial confession and an 
appeal to his generosity. She broke out in pity for her 
horses, in dread of her coachman, declaring that it was 
impossible for her to give him the order to drive her any- 
where but home. 

“With your permission, countess, I will undertake to 
give him the order,” said Merthyr. 

“But have you no compassion, signor Powys? and you 
are an Englishman ! I thought that Englishmen were ex- 
cessively compassionate with horses.” 

“ They have been known to kill them in the service of 
their friends, nevertheless.” 

“ Well! ” — Violetta had recourse to the expression of her 
shoulders — “and I am really to see Countess Anna?” 


SHOWS MANY PATHS CONVERGING TO THE END 487 


“In my presence.” 

“Oh! that cannot be. Pardon me; it is impossible. 
She will decline the scene. I say it with the utmost sin- 
cerity: I know that she will refuse.” 

“Then, countess,” Merthyr’s face grew hard, “if I am 
not to be in j T our company to prompt you, allow me to 
instruct you beforehand.” 

Violetta looked at him eagerly, as one looks for tidings, 
with an involuntary beseeching quiver of the strained eye- 
lids. 

“ No irony ! ” she said, fearing horribly that he was about 
to throw off the mask of irony. 

This desperate effort of her wits at the crisis succeeded. 

Merthyr, not knowing what design he had, hopeless of any 
definite end in tormenting the woman, and never having it 
in his mind merely to punish, was diverted by the exclama- 
tion to speak ironically. “ You can tell Countess Anna that 
it is only her temporal sovereign who is attacked, and that 
therefore ” he could not continue. 

“ Some affection? ” he murmured, in intense grief. 

His manly forbearance touched her whose moral wit was- 
too blunt to apprehend the contempt in it. 

“Much affection — much!” Violetta exclaimed. “I have 
a deep affection for Count Ammiani ; an old friendship. Be- 
lieve me ! believe me ! I came here last night to save him. 
Anything on earth that I can do, I will do — on my honour ; 
and do not smile at that — I have never pledged it without 
fulfilling the oath. I will not sleep while I can aid in pre- 
serving him. He shall know that I am not the base person 
he has conceived me to be. You,- signor Powys, are not a 
man to paint all women black that are a little less than 
celestial — are you? I am told it is a trick with your 
countrymen; and they have a poet who knew us! I en- 
treat you to confide in me. I am at present quite unaware 
that Count Ammiani runs particular — I mean personal — 
danger. He is in danger, of course; everyone can see it. 
But, on my honour — and never in my life have I spoken so 
earnestly, my friends would hardly recognize me — I declare 
to you on my faith as a Christian lady, I am ignorant of any 
plot against him. I can take a Cross and kiss it, like a peasant, 
and swear to you by the Madonna that I know nothing of it.” 


488 


YITTORIA 


She corrected her ardour, half-exulting in finding herself 
carried so far and so swimmingly on a tide of truth, half 
wondering whether the flowering beauty of her face in ex- 
citement had struck his sensibility. He was cold and specu- 
lative. 

“ Ah ! ” she said, “ if I were to ask my compatriots to put 
faith in a woman’s pure friendship for a man, I should know 
the answer; but you, signor Powys, who have shown us that 
a man is capable of the purest friendship for a woman, should 
believe me.” 

He led her down to the gates, where her coachman sat 
muffled in a three-quarter sleep. The word was given to 
drive to her own house; rejoiced by which she called his 
attention deploringly to the condition of her horses, request- 
ing him to say whether he could imagine them the best 
English, and confessing with regret, that she killed three 
sets a year — loved them well, notwithstanding. Merthyr 
saw enough of her to feel that she was one of the weak 
creatures who are strong through our greater weakness ; and, 
either by intuition or quick wit, too lively and too subtle to 
be caught by simple suspicion. She even divined that reflec- 
tion might tell him she had evaded him by an artifice — a 
piece of gross cajolery; and said, laughing: “ Concerning 
friendship, I could offer it to a boy, like Carlo Ammiani ; 
not to you, signor Powys. I know that I must check a youth, 
and I am on my guard. I should be eternally tormented to 
discover whether your armour was proof.” 

“I dare say that a lady who had those torments would 
soon be able to make them mine,” said Merthyr. 

“ You could not pay a fairer compliment to some one else,” 
she remarked. In truth, the candid personal avowal seemed 
to her to hold up Vittoria’s sacred honour in a crystal, and 
the more she thought of it, the more she respected him, for 
his shrewd intelligence, if not for his sincerity ; but on the 
whole she fancied him a loyal friend, not solely a clever 
maker of phrases; and she was pleased with herself for 
thinking such a matter possible, in spite of her education. 

“ I do most solemnly hope that you may not have to sus- 
tain Countess Alessandra under any affliction whatsoever,” 
she said at parting. 

Violetta had escaped an exposure — a rank and naked 


SHOWS MANY PATHS CONVERGING TO THE END 489 

accusation of her character and deeds. She feared nothing 
but that, being quite indifferent to opinion ; a woman who 
would not have thought it preternaturally sad to have to 
walk as a penitent in the streets, with the provision of a very 
thick veil to cover her. She had escaped, but the moment 
she felt herself free, she was surprised by a sharp twinge of 
remorse. She summoned her maid to undress her, and smelt 
her favourite perfume, and lay in her bed, to complete her 
period of rest, closing her eyes there with a child’s faith in 
pillows. Flying lights and blood-blotches rushed within a 
span of her forehead. She met this symptom promptly with 
a medical receipt ; yet she had no sleep ; nor would coffee give 
her sleep. She shrank from opium as deleterious to the consti- 
tution, and her mind settled on music as the remedy. 

Some time after her craving for it had commenced, an 
Austrian foot regiment, marching to the drum, passed under 
her windows. The fife is a merry instrument; fife and 
drum colour the images of battle gaily; but the dull ring- 
ing Austrian step-drum, beating unaccompanied, strikes the 
mind with the real nature of battles, as the salt smell of 
powder strikes it, and more in horror, more as a child’s 
imagination realizes bloodshed, where the scene is a rolling 
heaven, black and red on all sides, with pitiable men mov- 
ing up to the mouth of butchery, the insufferable flashes, the 
dark illumination of red, red of black, like a vision of the 
shadows Life and Death in a shadow-fight over the dear 
men still living. Sensitive minds may be excited by a small 
stimulant to see such pictures. This regimental drum is 
like a song of the flat-headed savage in man. It has no rise 
or fall, but leads to the bloody business with an unvarying 
note, and a savage’s dance in the middle of the rhythm. 
Violetta listened to it until her heart quickened with alarm 
lest she should be going to have a fever. She thought of 
Carlo Ammiani, and of the name of Hagen; she had seen 
him at the Lenkensteins. Her instant supposition was 
that Anna had perhaps paid heavily for the secret of 
Carlo’s movements on purpose to place Major Hagen on 
the Brescian high-road to capture him. Capture meant a 
long imprisonment, if not execution. Partly for the sake 
of getting peace of mind — for she was shocked by her tem- 
porary inability to command repose — but with some hope 


490 


VITTORIA 


of convincing Carlo that she strove to be of use to him, she 
sent for the spy Luigi, and at a cost of two hundred and 
twenty Austrian florins, obtained his promise upon oath 
to follow Count Ammiani into Brescia, if necessary, and 
deliver to him a letter she had written, wherein Nagen’s 
name was mentioned, and Carlo was advised to avoid per- 
sonal risks ; the letter hinted that he might have incurred 
a private enmity, and he had better keep among his friends. 
She knew the writing of this letter to be the foolishest 
thing she had ever done. Two hundred and twenty florins 
— the man originally stipulated to have three hundred — 
was a large sum to pay for postage. However, sacrifices 
must now and then be made for friendship, and for sleep. 
When she had paid half the money, her mind was relieved, 
and she had the slumber which preserves beauty. Luigi 
was to be paid the other half on his return. “He may 
never return,” she thought, while graciously dismissing 
him. The deduction by mental arithmetic of the two hun- 
dred and twenty, or the one hundred and ten florins, from 
the large amount Countess Anna was bound to pay her in 
turn, annoyed her, though she knew it was a trifle. For 
this lady, Milan, Turin, and Paris sighed deeply. 

When he had left Violetta at her house in the Corso, 
Merthyr walked briskly for exercise, knowing that he would 
have need of his health and strength. He wanted a sight 
of Alps to wash out the image of the woman from his mind, 
and passed the old Marshal’s habitation fronting the Gar- 
dens, wishing that he stood in the field against the fine old 
warrior, for whom he had a liking. Near the walls he dis- 
covered Beppo sitting pensively with his head between his 
two fists. Beppo had not seen Count Ammiani, but he 
had seen Barto Bizzo, and pointing to the walls, said that 
Barto had dropped down there. He had met him hurry- 
ing in the Corso Francesco. Barto took him to the house 
of Sarpo, the bookseller, who possessed a small printing- 
press. Beppo described vividly, with his usual vivacity 
of illustration, the stupefaction of the man at the appari- 
tion of his tormentor, whom he thought fast in prison; 
and how Barto had compelled him to print a proclamation 
to the Piedmontese, Lombards, and Venetians, setting forth 
that a battle had been fought South of the Ticino, and that 


SHOWS MANY PATHS CONVERGING TO THE END 491 

Carlo Alberto was advancing on Milan, signed with the 
name of the Piedmontese Pole in command of the king’s 
army. A second, framed as an order of the day, spoke of 
victory and the planting of the green, white and red banner 
on the Adige, and forward to the Isonzo. 

“ I can hear nothing of Carlo Alberto’s victory,” Beppo 
said ; “ no one has heard of it. Barto told us how the battle 
was fonght, and the name of the young lieutenant who dis- 
covered the enemy’s flank march, and got the artillery down 
on him, and pounded him so that — signore, it’s amazing ! 
I’m ready to cry, and laugh, and howl ! — fifteen thousand 
men capitulated in a heap ! ” 

“ Don’t you know you’ve been listening to a madman?” 
said Merthyr, irritated, and thoroughly angered to see 
Beppo’s opposition to that view. 

“ Signore, Barto described the whole battle. It began at 
five o’clock in the morning.” 

“ When it was dark ! ” 

“ Yes ; when it was dark. He said so. And we sent up 
rockets, and caught the enemy coming on, and the cavalry 
of Alessandria fell upon two batteries of field guns and 
carried them off, and Colonel Bomboni was shot in his 
back, and cries he, ‘Best give up the ghost if you’re hit in 
the rear. Evviva l’ltalia! ’ ” 

“A Piedmontese colonel, you fool! he would have 
shouted ‘Viva Carlo Alberto!”’ said Merthyr, now criti- 
cally disgusted with the tale, and refusing to hear more. 
Two hours later, he despatched Beppo to Carlo in Brescia, 
warning him that for some insane purpose these two procla- 
mations had been printed by Barto Bizzo, and that they 
were false. 

It was early on the morning of a second day, before 
sunrise, when Vittoria sent for Merthyr to conduct her to 
the cathedral. “There has been a battle,” she said. Her 
lips hardly joined to frame the syllables in speech. Mer- 
thyr refrained from asking where she had heard of the 
battle. As soon as the Duomo doors were open, he led her 
in and left her standing shrinking under the great vault 
with her neck fearfully drawn on her shoulders, as one sees 
birds under thunder. He thought that she was losing cour- 
age. Choosing to go out on the steps rather than look on 


492 


YITTORIA 


her, he was struck by the sight of two horsemen, who 
proved to be Austrian officers, rattling at racing speed past 
the Duomo up the Corso. The sight of them made it seem 
possible that a battle had been fought. As soon as he was 
free, Merthyr went to the Duchess of Graatli, from whom 
he had the news of Novara. The officers he had seen were 
Prince Radocky and Lieutenant Wilfrid Pierson, the old 
MarshaPs emissaries of victory. They had made a bet on 
the bloody field about reaching Milan first, and the duchess 
affected to be full of the humour of this bet in order to con- 
ceal her exultation. The Lenkensteins called on her; the 
Countess of Lenkenstein, Anna, and Lena; and they were 
less considerate, and drew their joy openly from the source 
of his misery — a dreadful house for Merthyr to remain in, 
but he hoped to see Wilfrid, having heard the duchess rally 
Lena concerning the deeds of the white umbrella, which, 
Lena said, was pierced with balls, and had been preserved 
for her. “The dear foolish fellow insisted on marching 
right into the midst of the enemy with his absurd white 
umbrella; and wherever there was danger the men were 
seen following it. Prince Radocky told me the whole army 
was laughing. How he escaped death was a miracle!” 
She spoke unaffectedly of her admiration for the owner, 
and as Wilfrid came in she gave him brilliant eyes. He 
shook Merthyr’s hand without looking at him. The ladies 
would talk of nothing but the battle, so he went up to 
Merthyr, and under pretext of an eager desire for English 
news, drew him away. 

“ Her husband was not there? not at Novara, I mean? ” he 
said. 

“He’s at Brescia,” said Merthyr. 

“Well, thank goodness he didn’t stand in those ranks! ” 
Wilfrid murmured, puffing thoughtfully over the picture 
they presented to his memory. 

Merthyr then tried to hint to him that he had a sort of 
dull suspicion of Carlo’s being in personal danger, but of 
what kind he could not say. He mentioned Weisspriess by 
name; and Nagen; and Countess Anna. Wilfrid said, 
“ I’ll find out if there’s anything, only don’t be fancying 
it. The man’s in a bad hole at Brescia. Weisspriess, I 
believe, is at Verona. He’s an honourable fellow. The 


SHOWS MANY PATHS CONVERGING TO THE END 493 

utmost he would do would be to demand a duel; and Pm 
sure he’s heartily sick of that work. Besides, he and 
Countess Anna have quarrelled. Meet me ; — by the way, 
you and I mustn’t be seen meeting, I suppose. The duch- 
ess is neutral ground. Come here to-night. And don’t 
talk of me, but say that a friend asks how she is, and hopes 
— the best things you can say for me. I must go up to 
their confounded chatter again. Tell her there’s no fear, 
none whatever. You all hate us, naturally; but you know 
that Austrian officers are gentlemen. Don’t speak my 
name to her just yet. Unless, of course, she should hap- 
pen to allude to me, which is unlikely. I had a dismal 
idea that her husband was at Novara.” 

The tender-hearted duchess sent a message to Yittoria, 
bidding her not to forget that she had promised her at 
Meran to ‘love her always.’ 

“And tell her,” she said to Merthyr, “that I do not think 
I shall have my rooms open for the concert to-morrow night. 
I prefer to let Antonio-Pericles go mad. She will not 
surely consider that she is bound by her promise to him? 
He drags poor Irma from place to place to make sure the 
miserable child is not plotting to destroy his concert, as 
that man Sarpo did. Irma is half dead, and hasn’t the 
courage to offend him. She declares she depends upon 
him for her English reputation. She has already caught a 
violent cold, and her sneezing is frightful. I have never 
seen so abject a creature. I have no compassion at the 
sight of her.” 

That night Merthyr heard from Wilfrid that a plot against 
Carlo Ammiani did exist. He repeated things he had heard 
pass between Countess d’Isorella and Irma in the chamber 
of Pericles before the late battle. Modestly confessing that 
he was ‘for some reasons ’ in high favour with Countess 
Lena, he added that after a long struggle he had brought 
her to confess that her sister had sworn to have Countess 
Alessandra Ammiani begging at her feet. 

By mutual consent they went to consult the duchess. 
She repelled the notion of Austrian women conspiring. 
“ An Austrian noble lady — do you think it possible that 
she would act secretly to serve a private hatred? Surely I 
may ask you, for my sake, to think better of us? ” 


494 


YITTORIA 


Merthyr showed her an opening to his ground by suggest- 
ing that Anna’s antipathy to Yittoria might spring more 
from a patriotic than a private source. 

“Oh! I will certainly make inquiries, if only to save 
Anna’s reputation with her enemies,” the duchess answered 
rather proudly. 

It would have been a Novara to Pericles if Yittoria had 
refused to sing. He held the pecuniarily-embarrassed 
duchess sufficiently in his power to command a concert at 
her house; his argument to those who pressed him to spare 
Yittoria in a season of grief running seriously, with visible 
contempt of their intellects, thus: “A great voice is an 
ocean. You cannot drain it with forty dozen opera-hats. 
It is something found — an addition to the wealth of this 
life. Shall we not enjoy what we find? You do not wear 
out a picture by looking at it; likewise you do not wear out 
a voice by listening to it. A bird has wings ; — here is a 
voice. Why were they given? I should say, to go into 
the air. Ah; but not if grandmother is ill. What is a 
grandmother to the wings and the voice? If to sing would 
kill, — yes, then let the puny thing be silent ! But Sandra 
Belloni has a soul that has not a husband — except her Art. 
Her body is husbanded; but her soul is above her body. 
You would treat it as below. Art is her soul’s husband! 
Besides, I have her promise. She is a girl who will go up 
to a loaded gun’s muzzle if she gives her word. And 
besides, her husband may be shot to-morrow. So, all she 
sings now is clear gain.” 

Yittoria sent word to him that she would sing. 

In the meantime a change had come upon Countess Anna. 
Weisspriess, her hero, appeared at her brother’s house, 
fresh from the field of Novara, whither he had hurried from 
Yerona on a bare pretext, that was a breach of military dis- 
cipline requiring friendly interposition in high quarters. 
Unable to obtain an audience with Count Lenkenstein, he 
remained in the hall, hoping for things which he affected to 
care nothing for; and so it chanced that he saw Lena, who 
was mindful that her sister had suffered much from passive 
jealousy when Wilfrid returned from the glorious field, and 
led him to Anna, that she also might rejoice in a hero. 
Weisspriess did not refrain from declaring on the way that 


SHOWS MANY PATHS CONVERGING TO THE END 495 

he would rather charge against a battery. Some time after, 
Anna lay in Lena’s arms, sobbing out one of the wildest 
confessions ever made by woman : — she adored Weisspriess ; 
she hated Hagen; but was miserably bound to the man she 
hated. “ Oh! now I know what love is.” She repeated this 
with transparent enjoyment of the opposing sensations by 
whose shock the knowledge was revealed to her. 

“How can you be bound to Major Hagen?” asked Lena. 

“ Oh ! why? except that I have been possessed by devils,” 
Anna moaned. “Living among these Italians has distem- 
pered my blood.” She exclaimed that she was lost. 

“In what way can you be lost? ” said Lena. 

“ I have squandered more than half that I possess. I am 
almost a beggar. I am no longer the wealthy Countess 
Anna. I am much poorer than anyone of us.” 

“But Major Weisspriess is a man of honour, and if he 
loves you ” 

“Yes; he loves me! he loves me! or would he come to 
me after I have sent him against a dozen swords? But he 
is poor; he must, must marry a wealthy woman. I used 
to hate him because I thought he had his eye on money. I 
love him for it now. He deserves wealth; he is a match- 
less hero. He is more than the first swordsman of our 
army; he is a knightly man. Oh my soul Johann! ” She 
very soon fell to raving. Lena was implored by her to give 
her hand to Weisspriess in reward for his heroism — “ For 
you are rich,” Anna said; “you will not have to go to him 
feeling that you have made him face death a dozen times 
for your sake, and that you thank him and reward him by 
being a whimpering beggar in his arms. Ho, dearest! 
Will you? Will you, to please me, marry Johann? He 
is not unworthy of you.” And more of this hysterical 
hypocrisy, which brought on fits of weeping. “I have 
lived among these savages till I have ceased to be human 
— forgotten everything but my religion,” she said. “I 
wanted Weisspriess to show them that they dared not stand 
up against a man of us, and to tame the snarling curs. He 
did. He is brave. He did as much as a man could do, but 
I was unappeasable. They seem to have bitten me till I 
had a devouring hunger to humiliate them. Lena, will you 
believe that I have no hate for Carlo Ammiani or the woman 


496 


YITTOBIA 


he has married? None! and yet, what have I done!” 
Anna smote her forehead. “They are nothing but little 
dots on a field for me. I don’t care whether they live or 
die. It’s like a thing done in sleep.” 

“ I want to know what you have done, ” said Lena caress- 
ingly. 

“You at least will try to reward our truest hero, and 
make up to him for your sister’s unkindness, will you not? ” 
Anna replied with a cajolery wonderfully like a sincere 
expression of her wishes. “ He will be a good husband. 
He has proved it by having been so faithful a — a lover. 
So you may be sure of him. And when he is yours, do not 
let him fight again, Lena, for I have a sickening presenti- 
ment that his next duel is his last.” 

“Tell me,” Lena entreated her, “pray tell me what hor- 
rible thing you have done to prevent your marrying him.” 

“ With their pride and their laughter,” Anna made answer; 
“ the fools ! were they to sting us perpetually and not suffer 
for it? That woman, the Countess Alessandra, as she’s now 
called — have you forgotten that she helped our Paul’s 
assassin to escape? was she not eternally plotting against 
Austria? And I say that I love Austria. I love my coun- 
try ; I plot for my country. She and her husband plot, and 
I plot to thwart them. I have ruined myself in doing it. 
Oh, my heart! why has it commenced beating again? Why 
did Weisspriess come here? He offended me. He refused 
to do my orders, and left me empty-handed, and if he suffers 
too,” Anna relieved a hard look with a smile of melancholy, 
“I hope he will not; I cannot say more.” 

“And I’m to console him if he does?” said Lena. 

“At least, I shall be out of the way,” said Anna. “I 
have still money enough to make me welcome in a convent.” 

“I am to marry him?” Lena persisted, and half induced 
Anna to act a feeble part, composed of sobs and kisses and 
full confession of her plight. Anna broke from her in time 
to leave what she had stated of herself vague and self -justi- 
ficatory, so that she kept her pride, and could forgive, as 
she was ready to do even so far as to ask forgiveness in 
turn, when with her awakened enamoured heart she heard 
Yittoria sing at the concert of Pericles. Countess Alessan- 
dra’s divine gift, which she would not withhold, though in 


SHOWS MANY PATHS CONVERGING TO THE END 49T 


a misery of apprehension ; her grave eyes, which none could 
accuse of coldness, though they showed no emotion; her 
simple noble manner that seemed to lift her up among the 
forces threatening her; these expressions of a superior soul 
moved Anna under the influence of the incomparable voice 
to pass over envious contrasts, and feel the voice and the 
nature were one in that bosom. Could it be the same as 
the accursed woman who had stood before her at Meran? 
She could hardly frame the question, but she had the 
thought sufficiently firmly to save her dignity; she was 
affected by very strong emotion when Vittoria’s singing 
ended, and nothing but the revival of the recollection of 
her old contempt preserved her from an impetuous desire 
to take the singer by the hand and have all clear between 
them ; for they were now of equal rank to tolerating eyes. 
“ But she has no religious warmth ! ” Anna reflected with a 
glow of satisfaction. The concert was broken up by Laura 
Piaveni. She said out loud that the presence of Major 
Weisspriess was intolerable to the Countess Alessandra. 
It happened that Weisspriess entered the room while Laura 
sat studying the effect produced by her countrywoman’s 
voice on the thick eyelids of Austrian Anna; and Laura, 
seeing their enemy ready to weep in acknowledgment of 
their power, scorned the power which could never win free- 
dom, and broke up the sitting, citing the offence of the 
presence of Weisspriess for a pretext. The incident threw 
Anna back upon her old vindictiveness. It caused an 
unpleasant commotion in the duchess’s saloon. Count 
Serabiglione was present, and ran round to Weisspriess, 
apologizing for his daughter’s behaviour. “ Do you think 
I can’t deal with your women as well as your men, you 
ass?” said Weisspriess, enraged by the scandal of the 
scene. He was overheard by Count Karl Lenkenstein, 
who took him to task sharply for his rough speech; but 
Anna supported her lover, and they joined hands publicly. 
Anna went home prostrated with despair. “What con- 
science is in me that I should wish one of my Kaiser’s 
officers killed?” she cried enigmatically to Lena. “But I 
must have freedom. Oh ! to be free. I am chained to my 
enemy, and God blesses that woman. He makes her weep, 
but he blesses her, for her body is free, and mine, — the 


498 


VITTORIA 


thought of mine sets flames creeping up my limbs as if I 
were tied to the stake. Losing a husband you love — what 
is that to taking a husband you hate?” Still Lena could 
get no plain confession from her, for Anna clung to self- 
justification, and felt it abandoning her, and her soul flut- 
tering in a black gulf when she opened her mouth to 
disburden herself. 

There came tidings of the bombardment of Brescia — one 
of the historic deeds of infamy. Many officers of the Im- 
perial army perceived the shame which it cast upon their 
colours, even in those intemperate hours, and Karl Lenken- 
stein assumed the liberty of private friendship to go com- 
plaining to the old Marshal, who was too true a soldier to 
condemn a soldier in action, however strong his disapproval 
of proceedings. The liberty assumed by Karl was exces- 
sive ; he spoke out in the midst of General officers as if his 
views were shared by them and the Marshal ; and his error 
was soon corrected ; one after another reproached him, until 
the Marshal, pitying his condition, sent him into his writ- 
ing-closet, where he lectured the youth on military disci- 
pline. It chanced that there followed between them a 
question upon what the General in command at Brescia 
would do with his prisoners; and hearing that they were 
subject to the rigours of a court-martial, and if adjudged 
guilty, would forthwith summarily be shot, Karl ventured 
to ask grace for Vittoria’ s husband. He succeeded finally 
in obtaining his kind old Chief’s promise that Count 
Ammiani should be tried in Milan, and as the bearer of 
a paper to that effect, he called on his sisters to get them 
or Wilfrid to convey word to Vittoria of her husband’s 
probable safety. He found Anna in a swoon, and Lena 
and the duchess bending over her. The duchess’s chasseur 
Jacob Baumwalder Feckelwitz had been returning from 
Meran, when on the Brescian high-road he met the spy 
Luigi, and acting promptly under the idea that Luigi was 
always a pestilential conductor of detestable correspond- 
ence, he attacked him, overthrew him, and ransacked him, 
and bore the fruit of his sagacious exertions to his mistress 
in Milan; it was Violetta d’Isorella’s letter to Carlo Am- 
miani. “I have read it,” the duchess said; “contrary to 
my habits when letters are not addressed to me. I bring it 


SHOWS MANY PATHS CONVERGING TO THE END 499 

open to yonr sister Anna. Slie catches sight of one or two 
names and falls down in the state in which you see her.” 

“ Leave her to me,” said Karl. 

He succeeded in extracting from Anna hints of the fact 
that she had paid a large sum of her own money to Countess 
d’Isorella for secrets connected with the Bergamasc and 
Brescian rising. “We were under a mutual oath to be 
silent, but if one has broken it the other cannot ; so I con- 
fess it to you, dearest good brother. I did this for my 
country at my personal sacrifice.” 

Karl believed that he had a sister magnificent in soul. 
She was glad to have deluded him, but she could not endure 
his praises, which painted to her imagination all that she 
might have been if she had not dashed her patriotism with 
the low cravings of vengeance, making herself like some 
abhorrent mediaeval grotesque, composed of eagle and rep- 
tile. She was most eager in entreating him to save Count 
Ammiani’s life. Carlo, she said, was their enemy, but he 
had been their friend, and she declared with singular ear- 
nestness that she should never again sleep or hold up her 
head, if he were slain or captured. 

“ My Anna is justified by me in everything she has done, ” 
Karl said to the duchess. 

“ In that case,” the duchess replied, “ I have only to differ 
with her to feel your sword’s point at my breast.” 

“I should certainly challenge the man who doubted her,” 
said Karl. 

The duchess laughed with a scornful melancholy. 

On the steps of the door where his horse stood saddled, 
he met Wilfrid, and from this promised brother-in-law re- 
ceived matter for the challenge. Wilfrid excitedly accused 
Anna of the guilt of a conspiracy to cause the destruction of 
Count Ammiani. In the heat of his admiration for his 
sister, Karl struck him on the cheek with his glove, and 
called him a name by which he had passed during the days 
of his disgrace, signifying one who plays with two parties. 
Lena’s maid heard them arrange to meet within an hour, 
and she having been a witness of the altercation, ran to her 
mistress in advance of Wilfrid, and so worked on Lena’s 
terrors on behalf of her betrothed and her brother, that Lena 
dropped at Anna’s feet telling her all that she had gathered 


500 


VITTORIA 


and guessed in verification of Wilfrid’s charge, and implor- 
ing her to confess the truth. Anna, though she saw her con- 
cealment pierced, could not voluntarily forego her brother’s 
expressed admiration of her, and clung to the tatters of 
secresy. After a brief horrid hesitation, she chose to face 
Wilfrid. This interview began with lively recriminations, 
and was resulting in nothing — for Anna refused to be shaken 
by his statement that the Countess d’Isorella had betrayed 
her, and perceived that she was listening to suspicions only 
— when, to give his accusation force, Wilfrid said that 
Brescia had surrendered and that Count Ammiani had es- 
caped. 

“ Anci I thank God for it ! ” Anna exclaimed, and with 
straight frowning eyes demanded the refutation of her sin- 
cerity. 

“ Count Ammiani and his men have five hours’ grace ahead 
of Major Hagen and half a regiment,” said Wilfrid. 

At this she gasped ; she had risen her breath to deny or 
defy, and hung on the top of it without a voice. 

“ Tell us — say, but do say — confess that you know Nagen 
to be a name of mischief,” Lena prayed her. 

“ I will say anything to prevent my brother from running 
into danger,” Anna rejoined. 

“ She is most foully accused by one whom we permitted to 
aspire to be of our own family,” said Karl. 

“ Yet you, Karl, have always been the first to declare her 
revengeful,” Lena turned to him. 

“Help, Karl, help me,” said Anna. 

“ Yes ! ” cried her sister ; “ there you stand, and ask for 
help, meanest of women ! Do you think these men are not 
in earnest ? Karl is to help you, and you will not speak a 
word to save him from a grave before night, or me from a 
lover all of blood.” 

“ Am I to be the sacrifice ? ” said Anna. 

“Whatever you call it, Wilfrid has spoken truth of you, 
and to none but members of our family ; and he had a right 
to say it, and you are bound now to acknowledge it.” 

“I acknowledge that I love and serve my country, Lena.” 

“Not with a pure heart: you can’t forgive. Insult or a 
wrong makes a madwoman of you. Confess, Anna! You 
know well that you can’t kneel to a priest’s ear, for you’ve 


SHOWS MANY PATHS CONVERGING TO THE END 501 

stopped your conscience. You have pledged yourself to 
misery to satisfy a spite, and you have not the courage to ask 

for ” Lena broke her speech like one whose wits have 

been kindled. “ Yes, Karl,” she resumed ; “ Anna begged you 
to help her. You will. Take her aside and save her from 
being miserable for ever. You do mean to fight my Wilfrid ? ” 

“ I am certainly determined to bring him to repentance — 
leaving him the option of the way,” said Karl. 

Lena took her sullen sister by the arm. 

“ Anna, will you let these two men go to slaughter ? Look 
at them ; they are both our brothers. One is dearer than a 
brother to me, and, oh God ! I have known what it is to half- 
lose him. You to lose a lover and have to go bound by a 
wretched oath to be the wife of a detestable short-sighted 
husband ! Oh, what an abominable folly ! ” 

This epithet, ‘ short-sighted,’ curiously forced in by Lena, 
was like a shock of the very image of Nagen’s needle features 
thrust against Anna’s eyes ; the spasm of revulsion in her 
frame was too quick for her habitual self-control. 

At that juncture Weisspriess opened the door, and Anna’s 
eyes met his. 

“ You don’t spare me,” she murmured to Lena. 

Her voice trembled, and Wilfrid bent his head near her, 
pressing her hand, and said, “Not only I, but Countess 
Alessandra Ammiani exonerates you from blame. As she 
loves her country, you love yours. My words to Karl were 
an exaggeration of what I know and think. Only tell me 
this ; — if Hagen captures Count Ammiani, how is he likely 
to deal with him?” 

“How can I inform you?” Anna replied coldly; but she 
reflected in a fire of terror. She had given Hagen the 
prompting of a hundred angry exclamations in the days 
of her fever of hatred ; she had nevertheless forgotten their 
parting words ; that is, she had forgotten her mood when 
he started for Brescia, and the nature of the last instruc- 
tions she had given him. Revolting from the thought of 
execution being done upon Count Ammiani, as one quickly 
springing out of fever dreams, all her white face went into 
hard little lines, like the withered snow which wears away 
in frost. “Yes,” she said; and again, “ Yes,” to something 
Weisspriess whispered in her ear, she knew not clearly 


502 


VITTORIA 


what. Weisspriess told Wilfrid that he would wait below. 
As he quitted the room, the duchess entered, and went up 
to Anna. “My good soul,” she said, “you have, I trust, 
listened to Major Weisspriess. Oh, Anna! you wanted 
revenge. Now take it, as becomes a high-born woman; 
and let your enemy come to your feet, and don’t spurn her 
when she is there. Must I inform you that I have been to 
Countess d’Isorella myself with a man who can compel her 
to speak? But Anna von Lenkenstein is not base like that 
Italian. Let them think of you as they will, I believe you 
to have a great heart. I am sure you will not allow per- 
sonal sentiment to sully your devotion to our country. 
Show them that our Austrian faces can be bright; and 
meet her whom you call your enemy; you cannot fly. You 
must see her, or you betray yourself. The poor creature’s 
husband is in danger of capture or death.” 

While the duchess’s stern under-breath ran on hurriedly, 
convincing Anna that she had, with no further warning, to 
fall back upon her uttermost strength — the name of Coun- 
tess Alessandra Ammiani was called at the door. Instinc- 
tively the others left a path between Yittoria and Anna. 
It was one of the moments when the adoption of a decisive 
course says more in vindication of conduct than long 
speeches. Anna felt that she was on her trial. For the 
first time since she had looked on this woman she noticed 
the soft splendour of Vittoria’s eyes, and the harmony of 
her whole figure; nor was the black dress of protesting 
Italian mourning any longer offensive in her sight, but on 
a sudden pitiful, for Anna thought : “ It may at this very 
hour be for her husband, and she not knowing it.” And 
with that she had a vision under her eyelids of Nagen 
like a shadowy devil in pursuit of men flying, and striking 
herself and Vittoria worse than dead in one blow levelled 
at Carlo Ammiani. A sense of supernatural horror chilled 
her blood when she considered again, facing her enemy, 
that their mutual happiness was by her own act involved in 
the fate of one life. She stepped farther than the half-way 
to greet her visitor, whose hands she took. Before a word 
was uttered between them, she turned to her brother, and 
with a clear voice said : — 

“Karl, the Countess Alessandra’s husband, our old friend 


SHOWS MANY PATHS CONVEKGING TO THE END 503 


Carlo Ammiani, may need succour in his flight. Try to 
cross it; or better, get among those who are pursuing him, 
and don’t delay one minute. You understand me.” 

Count Karl bowed his head, bitterly humbled. 

Anna’s eyes seemed to interrogate Yittoria, “Can I do 
more?” but her own heart answered her. 

Inveterate when following up her passion for vengeance, 
she was fanatical in responding to the suggestions of 
remorse. 

“Stay; I will despatch Major Weisspriess in my own 
name,” she said. “ He is a trusty messenger, and he knows 
those mountains. Whoever is the officer broken for aiding 
Count Ammiani’s escape, he shall be rewarded by me to 
the best of my ability. Countess Alessandra, I have antici- 
pated your petition; I hope you may not have to reproach 
me. Remember that my country was in pieces when you 
and I declared war. You will not suffer without my suf- 
fering tenfold. Perhaps some day you will do me the 
favour to sing to me, when there is no chance of interrup- 
tion. At present it is cruel to detain you.” 

Vittoria said simply: “I thank you, Countess Anna.” 

She was led out by Count Karl to where Merthyr awaited 
her. All wondered at the briefness of a scene that had un- 
expectedly brought the crisis to many emotions and pas- 
sions, as the broken waters of the sea beat together and 
make here or there the wave which is topmost. Anna’s 
grand initiative hung in their memories like the throbbing 
of a pulse, so hotly their sensations swarmed about it, and 
so intensely it embraced and led what all were desiring. 
The duchess kissed Anna, saying: — 

“ That is a noble heart to which you have become recon- 
ciled. Though you should never be friends, as I am with 
one of them, you will esteem her. Do not suppose her to 
be cold. She is the mother of an unborn little one, and for 
that little one’s sake she follows out every duty; she checks 
c wery passion in her bosom. She will spare no sacrifice to 
o. ive her husband, but she has brought her mind to look at 
the worst, for fear that a shock should destroy her motherly 
guard. ” 

“Really, duchess,” Anna replied, “these are things for 
married women to hear; ” and she provoked some contempt 


504 


V1TTOR.IA 


of her conventional delicacy, at the same time that in her 
imagination the image of Vittoria struggling to preserve 
this burden of motherhood against a tragic mischance, com- 
pletely humiliated and overwhelmed her, as if nature had 
also come to add to her mortifications. 

“ I am ready to confess everything I have done, and to 
be known for what I am,” she said. 

“ Confess no more than is necessary, but do everything 
you can; that’s wisest,” returned the duchess. 

“ Ah; you mean that you have nothing to learn.” Anna 
shuddered. 

“ I mean that you are likely to run into the other extreme 
of disfavouring yourself just now, my child. And,” con- 
tinued the duchess, “you have behaved so splendidly that 
I won’t think ill of you.” 

Before the day darkened, Wilfrid obtained, through 
Prince Radocky’s influence, an order addressed to Major 
Hagen for the surrender of prisoners into his hands. He 
and Count Karl started for the Val Camonica on the chance 
of intercepting the pursuit. These were not much wiser 
than their guesses and their apprehensions made them ; but 
Weisspriess started on the like errand after an interview 
with Anna, and he had drawn sufficient intelligence out of 
sobs, and broken sentences, and torture of her spirit, to 
understand that if Count Ammiani fell alive or dead into 
Hagen’s hands, Hagen by Anna’s scrupulous oath, had a 
claim on her person and her fortune : and he knew Hagen 
to be a gambler. As he was now by promotion of service 
Hagen’s superior officer, and a near relative of the Brescian 
commandant, who would be induced to justify his steps, 
his object was to reach and arbitrarily place himself over 
Hagen, as if upon a special mission, and to get the lead of 
the expedition. For that purpose he struck somewhat 
higher above the Swiss borders than Karl and Wilfrid, and 
gained a district in the mountains above the vale, perfectly 
familiar to him. Obeying directions forwarded to her by 
Wilfrid, Vittoria left Milan for the Yal Camonica no later 
than the evening; Laura was with her in the carriage; 
Merthyr took horse after them as soon as he had succeeded 
in persuading Countess Ammiani to pardon her daughter’s 
last act of wilfulness, and believe that, during the agita- 


THE LAST 505 

tion of unnumbered doubts, she ran less peril in the wilds 
where her husband fled, than in her home. 

“I will trust to her idolatrously, as you do,” Countess 
Ammiani said; “and perhaps she has already proved to me 
that I may.” 

Merthyr saw Agostino while riding out of Milan, and 
was seen by him; but the old man walked onward, looking 
moodily on the stones, and merely waved his hand behind. 


CHAPTER XLVI 

THE LAST 

There is hard winter overhead in the mountains when 
Italian Spring walks the mountain-sides with flowers, and 
hangs deep valley-walls with flowers half fruit ; the sources 
of the rivers above are set about with fangs of ice, while 
the full flat stream runs to a rose of sunlight. High among 
the mists and snows were the fugitives of Brescia, and those 
who for love or pity struggled to save them wandered through 
the blooming vales, sometimes hearing that they had crossed 
the frontier into freedom, and as often that they were scat- 
tered low in death and captivity. Austria here, Switzerland 
yonder, and but one depth between to bound across and win 
calm breathing. But mountain might call to mountain, 
peak shine to peak; a girdle of steel drove the hunted men 
back to frosty heights and clouds, the shifting bosom of 
snows and lightnings. They saw nothing of hands stretched 
out to succour. They saw a sun that did not warm them, 
a home of exile inaccessible, crags like an earth gone to 
skeleton in hungry air ; and below, the land of their birth, 
beautiful, and sown everywhere for them with torture and 
captivity, or death, the sweetest. 

Fifteen men numbered the escape from Brescia. They 
fought their way twice through passes of the mountains, 
and might easily, in their first dash Northward from the 
South-facing hills, have crossed to the Valtelline and Enga- 
dine, but that in their insanity of anguish they meditated 


506 


VITTORIA 


another blow, and were readier to march into the plains 
with the tricolour than to follow any course of flight. When 
the sun was no longer in their blood they thought of reason 
and of rest ; they voted the expedition to Switzerland, that 
so they should get round to Some, and descended from the 
crags of the Tonale, under which they were drawn to an 
ambush, suffering three of their party killed, and each man 
bloody with wounds. The mountain befriended them, and 
gave them safety, as truth is given by a bitter friend. 
Among icy crags and mists, where the touch of life grows 
dull as the nail of a fore-finger, the features of the mountain 
were stamped on them, and with hunger they lost pride, 
and with solitude laughter; with endless fleeing they lost 
the aim of flight; some became desperate, a few craven. 
Companionship was broken before they parted in three 
bodies, commanded severally by Colonel Corte, Carlo Am- 
miani, and Barto Rizzo. Corte reached the plains, masked 
by the devotion of Carlo’s band, who lured the soldiery to 
a point and drew a chase, while Corte passed the line and 
pushed on for Switzerland. Carlo told off his cousin Angelo 
Guidascarpi in the list of those following Corte ; but when 
he fled up to the snows again, he beheld Angelo spectral as 
the vapour on a jut of rock awaiting him. Barto Rizzo had 
chosen his own way, none knew whither. Carlo, Angelo, 
Marco Sana, and a sharply-wounded Brescian lad, con- 
ceived the scheme of traversing the South Tyrol mountain- 
range toward Friuli, whence Venice, the still-breathing 
republic, might possibly be gained. They carried the boy 
in turn till his arms drooped long down, and when they 
knew the soul was out of him they buried him in snow, 
and thought him happy. It was then that Marco Sana took 
his death for an omen, and decided them to turn their heads 
once more for Switzerland ; telling them that the boy, whom 
he last had carried, uttered “ Rome ” with the flying breath. 
Angelo said that Sana would get to Rome ; and Carlo, smil- 
ing on Angelo, said they were to die twins though they had 
been born only cousins. The language they had fallen upon 
was mystical, scarce intelligible to other than themselves. 
On a clear morning, with the Swiss peaks in sight, they 
were condemned by want of food to quit their fastness for 
the valley. 


THE LAST 


507 


Yittoria read the faces of the mornings as human creat- 
ures have tried to gather the sum of their destinies off 
changing surfaces, — fair not meaning fair, nor black black, 
but either the mask upon the secret of God’s terrible will; 
and to learn it and submit, was the spiritual burden of her 
motherhood, that the child leaping with her heart might 
live. Not to hope blindly, in the exceeding anxiousness of 
her passionate love, nor blindly to fear; not to let her soul 
fly out among the twisting chances; not to sap her great 
maternal duty by affecting false stoical serenity : — to nurse 
her soul’s strength, and suckle her womanly weakness with 
the tears which are poison when repressed; to be at peace 
with a disastrous world for the sake of the dependent life 
unborn; by such pure efforts she clung to God. Soft dreams 
of sacred nuptial tenderness, tragic images, wild pity, were 
like phantoms encircling her, plucking at her as she went, 
but they were beneath her feet, and she kept them from 
lodging between her breasts. The thought that her hus- 
band, though he should have perished, was not a life lost if 
their child lived, sustained her powerfully. It seemed to 
whisper at times almost as it were Carlo’s ghost breathing 
in her ears : “ On thee ! ” On her the further duty devolved ; 
and she trod down hope, lest it should build her up and 
bring a shock to surprise her fortitude : she put back alarm. 

The mountains and the valleys scarce had names for her 
understanding; they were but a scene where the will of her 
Maker was at work. Karely has a soul been so subjected 
by its own force. She certainly had the image of God in 
her mind. 

Yet when her eyes lingered on any mountain gorge, the 
fate of her husband sang within it a strange chant, ending 
in a key that rang sounding through all her being, and 
seemed to question heaven. This music framed itself; it 
was still when she looked at the shrouded mountain-tops. 
A shadow meeting sunlight on the long green slopes aroused 
it, and it hummed above the tumbling hasty foam, and 
penetrated hanging depths of foliage, sad-hued rock-clefts, 
dark green ravines; it became convulsed where the moun- 
tain threw forward in a rushing upward line against the 
sky, there to be severed at the head by cloud. It was silent 
among the vines. 


508 


VITTORIA 


Most painfully did human voices affect her when she had 
this music; speech was a scourge to her sense of hearing, 
and touch distressed her: an edge of purple flame would 
then unfold the vision of things to her eyes. She had lost 
memory ; and if by hazard unawares one idea was projected 
by some sudden tumult of her enslaved emotions beyond 
known and visible circumstances, her intelligence darkened 
with an oppressive dread like that of zealots of the guilt of 
impiety. 

Thus destitute, her eye took innumerable pictures sharp 
as on a brass-plate: torrents, goat-tracks winding up red 
earth, rocks veiled with water, cottage and children, strings 
of villagers mounting to the church, one woman kneeling 
before a wayside cross, her basket at her back, and her 
child gazing idly by; perched hamlets, rolling pasture- 
fields, the vast mountain lines. She asked all that she 
saw, “Does he live?” but the life was out of everything, 
and these shows told of no life, neither of joy nor of grief. 
She could only distantly connect the appearance of the 
white-coated soldiery with the source of her trouble. They 
were no more than figures on a screen that hid the flashing 
of the sword which renders dumb. She had charity for 
one who was footsore and sat cherishing his ankle by a vil- 
lage spring, and she fed him, and not until he was far 
behind, thought that he might have seen the white face of 
her husband. 

Accurate tidings could not be obtained, though the whole 
course of the vale was full of stories of escapes, conflicts, 
and captures. Merthyr learnt positively that some fugi- 
tives had passed the cordon. He came across Wilfrid and 
Count Karl, who both verified it in the most sanguine 
manner. They knew, however, that Major Nagen contin- 
ued in the mountains. Hiding by a bend of the road, Mer- 
thyr beheld a man playing among children, with one hand 
and his head down apparently for concealment at his ap- 
proach. It proved to be Beppo. The man believed that 
Count Ammiani had fled to Switzerland. Barto Bizzo, he 
said, was in the mountains still, and Beppo invoked damna- 
tion on him, as the author of those lying proclamations 
which had ruined Brescia. He had got out of the city 
later than the others, and was seeking to evade the outposts, 


THE LAST 


509 


that he might join his master — “that is, my captain, for I 
have only one master; ” he corrected the slip of his tongue 
appealingly to Merthyr. His left hand was being continu- 
ally plucked at by the children while he talked, and after 
Merthyr had dispersed them with a shower of small coin, 
he showed the hand, saying, glad of eye, that it had taken 
a sword-cut intended for Count Ammiani. Merthyr sent 
him back to mount the carriage, enjoining him severely not 
to speak. 

When Carlo and his companions descended from the 
mountains, they entered a village where there was an inn 
recognized by Angelo as the abode of Jacopo Cruchi. He 
there revived Carlo's animosity toward Weisspriess by tell- 
ing the tale of the passage to Meran, and his good reasons 
for determining to keep guard over the Countess Alessandra 
all the way. Subsequently Angelo went to Jacopo for food. 
This he procured, but he was compelled to leave the man 
behind, and unpaid. It was dark when he left the inn ; he 
had some difficulty in evading a flock of whitecoats, and his 
retreat from the village was still on the Austrian side. 
Somewhat about midnight Merthyr reached the inn, her- 
alding the carriage. As Jacopo caught sight of Yittoria’s 
face, he fell with his shoulders straightened against the 
wall, and cried out loudly that he had betrayed no one, and 
mentioned Major Weisspriess by name as having held the 
point of his sword at him and extracted nothing better 
than a wave of the hand and a lie ; in other words, that the 
fugitives had retired to the Tyrolese mountains, and that 
he had shammed ignorance of who they were. Merthyr 
read at a glance that Jacopo had the large swallow and 
calm digestion for bribes, and getting the fellow alone he 
laid money in view, out of which, by doubling the sum to 
make Jacopo correct his first statement, and then by threat- 
ening to withdraw it altogether, he gained knowledge of the 
fact that Angelo Guidascarpi had recently visited the inn, 
and had started from it South-eastward, and that Major 
Weisspriess was following on his track. He wrote a lino 
of strong entreaty to Weisspriess, lest that officer should 
perchance relapse into anger at the taunts of prisoners 
abhorring him with the hatred of Carlo and Angelo. At 
the same time he gave Beppo a considerable supply of 


510 


VITTORIA 


money, and then sent him off, armed as far as possible to 
speed Count Ammiani safe across the borders, if a fugitive ; 
or if a prisoner, to ensure the best which could be hoped for 
him from an adversary become generous. That evening 
Vittoria lay with her head on Laura’s lap, and the pearly 
little crescent of her ear in moonlight by the window. So 
fair and young and still she looked that Merthyr feared for 
her, and thought of sending her back to Countess Ammiani. 

Her first question with the lifting of her eyelids was if 
he had ceased to trust to her courage. 

“No,” said Merthyr; “there are bounds to human 
strength; that is all.” 

She answered: “There would be to mine if I had not 
more than human strength beside me. I bow my head, 
dearest; it is that. I feel that I cannot break down as 
long as I know what is passing. Does my husband 
live?” 

“Yes, he lives,” said Merthyr; and she gave him her 
hand, and went to her bed. 

He learnt from Laura that when Beppo mounted the car- 
riage in silence, a fit of ungovernable wild trembling had 
come on her, broken at intervals by a cry that something 
was concealed. Laura could give no advice ; she looked on 
Merthyr and Vittoria as two that had an incomprehensible 
knowledge of the power of one another’s natures, and the 
fiery creature remained passive in perplexity of mind, as 
soft an attendant as a suffering woman could have. 

Merthyr did not sleep, and in the morning Vittoria said 
to him, “You want to be active, my friend. Go, and we 
will wait for you here. I know that I am never deceived 
by you, and when I see you I know that the truth speaks 
and bids me be worthy of it Go up there,” she pointed 
with shut eyes at the mountains; “leave me to pray for 
greater strength. I am among Italians at this inn, and 
shall spend money here; the poor people love it.” She 
smiled a little, showing a glimpse of her old charitable 
humour. 

Merthyr counselled Laura that in case of evil tidings 
during his absence she should reject her feminine ideas of 
expediency, and believe that she was speaking to a brave 
soul firmly rooted in the wisdom of heaven. 


THE LAST 


511 


“Tell her? — she will die,” said Laura, shuddering. 

“ Get tears from her,” Merthyr rejoined; “ but hide noth- 
ing from her for a single instant; keep her in daylight. 
For God’s sake, keep her in daylight.” 

“It’s too sharp a task for me.” She repeated that she 
was incapable of it. 

“Ah,” said he, “look at your Italy, how she weeps! and 
she has cause. She would die in her grief, if she had no 
faith for what is to come. I dare say it is not, save in the 
hearts of one or two, a conscious faith, but it’s real divine 
strength; and Alessandra Ammiani has it. Do as I bid 
you. I return in two days.” 

Without understanding him, Laura promised that she 
would do her utmost to obey, and he left her muttering to 
herself as if she were schooling her lips to speak reluctant 
words. He started for the mountains with gladdened limbs, 
taking a guide, who gave his name as Lorenzo, and talked 
of having been ‘out’ in the previous year. “I am a pa- 
triot, signore! and not only in opposition to my beast of a 
wife, I assure you: a downright patriot, I mean.” Mer- 
thyr was tempted to discharge him at first, but controlled 
his English antipathy to babblers, and discovered him to be 
a serviceable fellow. Toward nightfall they heard shots up 
a rock-strewn combe of the lower slopes; desultory shots 
indicating rifle-firing at long range. Darkness made them 
seek shelter in a pine-hut; starting from which at dawn, 
Lorenzo ran beating about like a dog over the place where 
the shots had sounded on the foregoing day; he found a 
stone spotted with blood. Not far from the stone lay a 
military glove that bore brown-crimson finger-ends. They 
were striking off to a dairy-hut for fresh milk, when out of 
a crevice of rock overhung by shrubs a man’s voice called, 
and Merthyr climbing up from perch to perch, saw Marco 
Sana lying at half length, shot through hand and leg. 
From him Merthyr learnt that Carlo and Angelo had fled 
higher up; yesterday they had been attacked by Weiss- 
priess, who tried to lure them to surrender by coming for- 
ward at the head of his men and offering safety, and “ other 
gabble,” said Marco. He offered a fair shot at his heart, 
too, while he stood below a rock that Marco pointed at 
gloomily as a hope gone for ever; but Carlo would not 


512 


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allow advantage to be taken of even the treacherous simu- 
lation of chivalry, and only permitted firing after he had 
returned to his men. “I was hit here and here,” said 
Marco, touching his wounds, as men can hardly avoid doing 
when speaking of the fresh wound. Merthyr got him on 
his feet, put money in his pocket, and led him off the big 
stones painfully. “They give no quarter,” Marco assured 
him, and reasoned that it must be so, for they had not taken 
him prisoner, though they saw him fall, and ran by or in 
view of him in pursuit of Carlo. By this Merthyr was con- 
vinced that Weisspriess meant well. He left his guide in 
charge of Marco to help him into the Engadine. Greatly 
to his astonishment, Lorenzo tossed the back of his hand at 
the offer of money. “ There shall be this difference between 
me and my wife,” he remarked; “and besides, gracious 
signore, serving my countrymen for nothing, that’s for love, 
and the Tedeschi can’t punish me for it, so it’s one way of 
cheating them, the wolves ! ” Merthyr shook his hand and 
said, “ Instead of my servant, be my friend ; ” and Lorenzo 
made no feeble mouth, but answered, “ Signore, it is much 
to my honour,” and so they went different ways. 

Left to himself Merthyr set step vigorously upward. 
Information from herdsmen told him that he was an hour 
off the foot of one of the passes. He begged them to tell 
any hunted men who might come within hail that a friend 
ran seeking them. Farther up, while thinking of the fine 
nature of that Lorenzo, and the many men like him who 
could not by the very existence of nobility in their bosoms 
suffer their country to go through another generation of 
servitude, his heart bounded immensely, for he heard a 
shout and his name, and he beheld two figures on a rock 
near the gorge* where the mountain opened to its heights. 
But they were not Carlo and Angelo. They were Wilfrid 
and Count Karl, the latter of whom had discerned him 
through a telescope. They had good news to revive him, 
however : good at least in the main. Hagen had captured 
Carlo and Angelo, they believed; but they had left Weiss- 
priess near on Hagen’s detachment, and they furnished 
sound military reasons to show why, if Weisspriess favoured 
the escape, they should not be present. They supposed that 
they were not half-a-mile from the scene in the pass where 


THE LAST 


513 


Hagen was being forcibly deposed from his authority. 
Merthyr borrowed Count Karl’s glass, and went as they 
directed him round a bluff of the descending hills, that 
faced the vale, much like a blown and beaten sea-cliff. 
Wilfrid and Karl were so certain of Count Ammiani’s 
safety, that their only thought was to get under good cover 
before nightfall, and haply into good quarters, where the 
three proper requirements of the soldier — meat, wine, and 
tobacco — might be furnished to them. After an imperative 
caution that they should not present themselves before the 
Countess Alessandra, Merthyr sped quickly over the broken 
ground. How gaily the two young men cheered to him as 
he hurried on ! He met a sort of pedlar turning the blunt- 
faced mountain-spur, and this man said, “Yes, sure enough, 
prisoners had been taken,” and he was not aware of harm 
having been done to them ; he fancied there was a quarrel 
between two captains. His plan being always to avoid the 
military, he had slunk round and away from them as fast as 
might be. An Austrian common soldier, a good-humoured 
German, distressed by a fall that had hurt his knee-cap, sat 
within the gorge, which was very wide at the mouth. Mer- 
thyr questioned him, and he, while mending one of his 
gathered cigar-ends, pointed to a meadow near the beaten 
track, some distance up the rocks. Whitecoats stood thick 
on it. Merthyr lifted his telescope and perceived an eager 
air about the men, though they stood ranged in careless 
order. He began to mount forthwith, but amazed by a 
sudden ringing of shot, he stopped, asking himself in horror 
whether it could be an execution. The shots and the noise 
increased, until the confusion of a positive mellay reigned 
• above. The fall of the meadow swept to a bold crag right 
over the pathway, and with a projection that seen sideways 
made a vulture’s head and beak of it. There rolled a corpse 
down the precipitous wave of green grass on to the crag, 
where it lodged, face to the sky; sword dangled from sword- 
knot at one wrist, heels and arms were in the air, and the 
body caught midway hung poised and motionless. The fir- 
ing deadened. Then Merthyr drawing nearer beneath the 
crag, saw one who had life in him slipping down toward 
the body, and knew the man for Beppo. Beppo knocked 
his hands together and groaned miserably, but flung himself 


514 


VITTORIA 


astride the beak of the crag, and took the body in his arms, 
sprang down with it, and lay stunned at Merthyr’s feet. 
Merthyr looked on the face of Carlo Ammiani. 


Epilogue 

No uncontested version of the tragedy of Count Ammiani’s 
death passed current in Milan during many years. With 
time it became disconnected from passion, and took form in 
a plain narrative. He and Angelo were captured by Major 
Nagen, and were, as the soldiers of the force subsequently 
let it be known, roughly threatened with what he termed 
‘Brescian short credit.’ The appearance of Major Weiss- 
priess and his claim to the command created a violent dis- 
cussion between the two officers. For Nagen, by all military 
rules, could well contest it. But Weisspriess had any body of 
the men of the army under his charm, and seeing the ascen- 
dency he gained with them over an unpopular officer, he 
dared the stroke for the charitable object he had in view. 
Having established his command, in spite of Nagen’s wrath- 
ful protests and menaces, he spoke to the prisoners, telling 
Carlo that for his wife’s sake he should be spared, and 
Angelo that he must expect the fate of a murderer. His 
address to them was deliberate, and quite courteous : he 
expressed himself sorry that a gallant gentleman like An- 
gelo Guidascarpi should merit a bloody grave, but so it was. 
At the same time he entreated Count Ammiani to rely on- 
his determination to save him. Major Nagen did not stand 
far removed from them. Carlo turned to him and repeated 
the words of Weisspriess; nor could Angelo restrain his 
cousin’s vehement renunciation of hope and life in doing 
this. He accused Weisspriess of a long evasion of a brave 
man’s obligation to repair an injury, charged him with cow- 
ardice, and requested Major Nagen, as a man of honour, to 
drag his brother officer to the duel. Nagen then said that 
Major Weisspriess was his superior, adding that his gallant 
brother officer had only of late objected to vindicate his repu- 


EPILOGUE 


515 


tation with his sword. Stung finally beyond the control 
of an irritable temper, Weisspriess walked out of sight of 
the soldiery with Carlo, to whom, at a special formal request 
from Weisspriess, Nagen handed his sword. Again he begged 
Count Ammiani to abstain from fighting ; yea, to strike him 
and disable him, and fly, rather than provoke the skill of 
his right hand. Carlo demanded his cousin’s freedom. It 
was denied to him, and Carlo claimed his privilege. The 
witnesses of the duel were Jenna and another young subal- 
tern : both declared it fair according to the laws of honour, 
when their stupefaction on beholding the proud swordsman 
of the army stretched lifeless on the brown leaves of the 
past year left them with power to speak. Thus did Carlo 
slay his old enemy who would have served as his friend. 
A shout of rescue was heard before Carlo had yielded up 
his weapon. Four haggard and desperate men, headed by 
Barto Rizzo, burst from an ambush on the guard encircling 
Angelo. There, with one thought of saving his doomed 
cousin and comrade, Carlo rushed, and not one Italian sur- 
vived the fight. 

An unarmed spectator upon the meadow-borders, Beppo, 
had but obscure glimpses of scenes shifting like a sky in 
advance of hurricane winds. 

Merthyr delivered the burden of death to Vittoria. Her 
soul had crossed the darkness of the river of death in that 
quiet agony preceding the revelation of her Maker’s will, 
and she drew her dead husband to her bosom and kissed 
him on the eyes and the forehead, not as one who had quite 
gone away from her, but as one who lay upon another shore 
whither she would come. The manful friend, ever by her 
side, saved her by his absolute trust in her fortitude to bear 
the burden of the great sorrow undeceived, and to walk with 
it to its last resting-place on earth unobstructed. Clear know- 
ledge of her, the issue of reverent love, enabled him to read 
her unequalled strength of nature, and to rely on her fidelity 
to her highest mortal duty in a conflict with extreme despair. 
She lived through it as her Italy had lived through the hours 
which brought her face to face with her dearest in death ; 
and she also on the day, ten years later, when an Emperor 
and a King stood beneath the vault of the grand Duomo, 
and the organ and a peal of voices rendered thanks to 


516 


VITTORIA 


heaven for liberty, could show the fruit of her devotion 
in the dark-eyed boy, Carlo Merthyr Ammiani, standing 
between Merthyr and her, with old blind Agostino’s hands 
upon his head. And then once more, and but for once, her 
voice was heard in Milan. 


THE END 


PRICE ONE DOLLAR 


VITTORIA 

BY 

GEORGE MEREDITH 


Revised Edition 


NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
1897 



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